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Of Many Colors [Stormlight Archive/Lord of the Rings]

Thread starter LithosMaitreya Start date Aug 29, 2022 Tags lord of the rings (middle-earth) stormlight archive (cosmere)

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Threadmarks 34: In Memory

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

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May 15, 2023

#1,010

Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

34

In Memory

-x-x-x-

I have long since forgotten most of the Black Speech. It fell into disuse among the dragons during the early Third Age, and I rarely heard more than a few words of it after the Withered Heath was emptied in the early years of the Fourth Age, when the full might of Gondor renewed fell upon us.

-x-x-x-

"You know," Moash said, looking around the training grounds with a critical eye. "I always thought this place would be… I don't know. Better. It looks the same as where the darkeyes practice."

"There are different sorts of training areas," Sarus commented, remembering the spearmen's lists in the courtyards of Castle Sadaras, the duelists' salles, the archers' range. "But out here on the Plains, even the lighteyes have to, in some small ways, rough it with the rest of us."

Moash shot him a look as they both followed Kaladin, along with Drehy, Leyten, and three members of the original Cobalt Guard. Kaladin had been given command over most of the survivors from among Dalinar's bodyguards. To Sarus' surprise, all of them—even the four surviving lighteyes—had accepted the captain's authority without complaint. Sarus hadn't yet learned all their names, though he suspected Kaladin had. The three with them today were darkeyed, however, and had started slowly assimilating into Bridge Four. They had even sewn Bridge Four patches into the left shoulder of their uniforms, to match the glyphs of the Cobalt Guard on their right.

"You know an awful lot about how lighteyes live," Moash commented, his eyes hooded with suspicion.

"I was raised in closer proximity to them than most," said Sarus evenly, trying not to think too hard about what he was saying. "The wealthiest lighteyes have darkeyed house servants. My mother was a maid when I was born and became a cook when I was a child. We had a small suite within the servants' quarters. I saw more of lighteyed society than many lighteyes do, I suspect."

"Huh. Can't imagine that was much fun."

Sarus shrugged noncommittally, thinking of green eyes in the dark. "It had its moments, as any childhood does." He turned his gaze to follow a small knot of ardents bustling in their direction. Their leader was a woman in her mid-thirties, if Sarus had to guess. Her eyes were a deep blue, barely bright enough to qualify as light.

"This," she said sharply as she reached them, "is the lighteyes training ground. What business do you have here?"

"Captain Kaladin, Bridge Four," said Kaladin, without even looking at her. He was scanning the ground, his spear on his shoulder, a thoughtful scowl on his face.

"Captain?" one of the ardents scoffed. "Darkeyes—" One of the others shushed him before he could finish embarrassing himself.

"Moash," Kaladin said, ignoring them. "See those rockbuds up on top of the wall there?"

"Yes."

"They're cultivated, so there's a way up. I want you up there, keeping an eye on things. Shout if you see any trouble brewing."

Sarus narrowed his eyes at the wall along the edge of the training ground. His eyes were keener than most, he knew. Kaladin hadn't seen the tip of the railing running along a stairwell rising up along the inside of the northern side of the wall, almost hidden from this angle, but Sarus could clearly make it out. He turned to the ardents. "Do one of you happen to have the key?" he asked politely.

"I have," said the woman at the front of the group stiffly.

"Great," said Kaladin. "You can let him in."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "And what danger do you expect to find here?"

"I see a lot of weapons, including two Shardblades. A lot of people moving in and out, with no one monitoring who except to check their eyes. You're right, I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong."

Sarus carefully kept his lips from twitching as the ardent sighed and passed her key to an assistant.

Kaladin turned back to the rest of the group, though his eyes kept scanning the edges of the field for good vantage points. "Drehy, you head up onto that boulder there. Leyten, head over to that corner, back to the wall. Ahis, over by that building. Morel, on that hill over there. Veslin, by the gate. Sarus, with me."

All five men saluted and jogged off. Kaladin himself remained standing near the center of the field, watching the two men practicing with their Shards. Both wore Plate, and both suits were painted in simple Kholin blues with no further adornment.

"I don't recognize those Shardbearers," Kaladin commented.

"They aren't Shardbearers," said the ardent with a roll of her eyes. "They're practicing with the King's Blades."

"Elhokar lets other people use his Shards?" Kaladin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"His Majesty does, yes," Sarus said, before the ardent could get too annoyed with Kaladin's attitude. My friend, you really need to cultivate better habits if we're going to continue working in such close proximity to lighteyes. "One of the many traditions that keeps Alethkar in control of more Shards than any other nation on Roshar. It allows men who do not yet have their own Shards to train with them, either for battle against Shardbearers or, more often, for duels. As a rule, the second-in-command of a Shardbearer is always familiar with his superior's Blade. Just in case."

"Makes sense. The king has two Blades, then?"

"One was King Gavilar's."

"It is kept for this exact purpose," said the ardent, "though His Majesty has hinted that he may one day give his father's Blade to a worthy warrior."

Kaladin nodded with a sort of snide appreciation. "Good way to trick men into training," he said. "Tempt them with the possibility of being given a Shard if they're disciplined."

Sarus passed his hand over his eyes, then turned to the ardent, who looked genuinely affronted. "Is there a procedure for darkeyed men to train against Blades?" he asked, trying to distract her from his pathologically disrespectful superior. "We have been assigned to fill the… recently vacated positions within the Cobalt Guard. It seems all too likely that anyone with designs on Highprince Kholin or His Majesty may be so armed."

Her pursed lips loosened just slightly as she considered him. "There is no such tradition," she said, though she didn't seem as affronted by the question as by Kaladin's flagrant impertinence. "You would have to ask one of His Majesty's advisors to suggest the idea."

"Could you perhaps bring it before the Devotary of Jezerezeh?" Sarus asked, with a disarming smile. That was the branch of the ardentia dedicated specifically to advising monarchs in all the Vorin kingdoms. One of their members would certainly have Elhokar's ear.

She seemed pleased to see that, even if Kaladin himself were an uncultured brute with no knowledge of Alethi traditions, at least this man knew something of them. "I will ask Ardent Meletam," she said, before turning and walking away, taking the rest of the ardents with her.

Sarus allowed his smile to fall as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Kaladin," he said. "My friend, my brother. You may have a captain's knots on your soldier, but that does not mean you can disrespect the king in front of half the ardentia."

"Disrespect the—oh." Kaladin blinked, visibly going back through the conversation in his head. "You're right. Sorry."

Sarus nodded once and let the matter drop. "The princes should be arriving before too long," he said instead.

"Assuming they bother to be on time."

"You saw Prince Adolin's duel. Did that seem to you like the performance of a man who shirks his training?"

Kaladin sighed. "No, it didn't. Doesn't mean I have to like him."

"Of course it doesn't. But you can acknowledge a man's strengths without believing they outweigh his flaws. Adolin Kholin is an accomplished duelist, a charismatic figurehead, and—for a man in his position—relatively principled. He also happens to be something of an idiot, vain as a four-color chicken, and prouder than Ishi'Elin. We can acknowledge the flaws without lying to ourselves about the virtues."

"This isn't about Adolin."

Sarus raised an eyebrow. "Who do you think I'm talking about, then, Kaladin?"

Kaladin didn't answer.

"I'm not talking about anyone specific. Generally, it is possible—and necessary—to acknowledge the strengths, as well as the weaknesses, of potential enemies and rivals. I'm sure you know this. But you must make it second-nature if you are to be a leader among lighteyes."

Kaladin shot him a look. "You were more than just a house servant," he said.

Sarus took a deep breath to keep himself from visibly flinching. "I was." Kaladin wouldn't pry, he knew, but he needed the man to believe that he knew what he was talking about. Kaladin would never be a maneuverer and manipulator like Sarus was. Like Tailiah had been. But he needed to learn the very basics or all of Bridge Four might suffer for it. "My best friend was second dahn."

Kaladin nodded once. Then the exact number seemed to sink in, and he whirled on Sarus. "Second dahn?" he hissed.

"Yes."

"Who in Damnation—"

"Tailiah Sadeas," said Sarus, eyes fixed on the horizon.

Kaladin stared at him with wide eyes. Sarus could practically see the questions running through his head. Which only made it more admirable when he visibly bundled them up and buried them at the expression on Sarus' face. They stood in silence for a moment, Kaladin watching him, wrestling down his curiosity, while Sarus stared out at the Plains.

Then Kaladin spoke. "I was a squadleader in Amaram's army," he said, following Sarus' gaze.

Sarus didn't turn to look at him. They stood there, shoulder to shoulders, eyes fixed upon the past.

"A Shardbearer came after him in a battle," Kaladin continued hoarsely. "My men and I were close enough to help. I ordered them to go that way. Every other squad was just trying to get out of the way, but we went towards the Shardbearer. He killed almost my whole squad. Sixteen men, dead in two blows. I managed to kill him before he got Amaram. They tried to give me his Shardblade but I… I couldn't. I didn't want it. That thing killed sixteen of the best men I knew. I gave it to one of the last four members of my squad."

"Ah," said Sarus.

"You want to know how Amaram repaid me?"

"I already do." Sarus could see it as clear as if Meridas Amaram were whispering the words directly into his ears. We need skilled Shardbearers. We need people who know how to use the weapons. Gifted people. It would be one thing if the man who killed a Shardbearer with nothing but a spear took up the Blade with no prior training. But an untested darkeyes? Those resources can be better allocated elsewhere. They can be better allocated to me.

Certainly, Amaram would have wanted the Blade and Plate for himself even if Kaladin hadn't rejected them. But men like him…

Amaram, Sarus realized, was not like Torol Sadeas. Sadeas knew himself nearly as well as anyone Sarus had ever known. Sadeas knew exactly what a cremling he was. If a darkeyed spearman had saved him from a Shardbearer, that spearman wouldn't have even had the chance to reject the Blade, and not a single darkeyed witness would have survived the experience.

But Amaram had, if Sarus had to guess, managed to delude himself nearly as much as he deluded the people around him. Killing the man who had saved his life would have broken his own belief in himself. It would have been a bridge too far. He could not simply do whatever he wanted without sparing it a second thought, because he was neither good enough to desire honor and justice nor evil enough to enjoy cutting them open and watching them bleed.

But he was pathetic enough to close his eyes and strike out with the knife anyway.

"Not every lighteyes is a monster, Kaladin," said Sarus quietly.

"I know," Kaladin said. "It's just hard to believe it, sometimes. Tailiah was better?"

"Tailiah was incredible. You might have hated her, or you might have loved her. It would have depended entirely on how she wanted you to feel."

"Huh."

"The princes are," said Archive suddenly, her voice soft enough that only the two of them—and Syl, who stood looking sadly down at Kaladin above their heads—could hear her.

Sarus and Kaladin turned. It was true—Adolin and Renarin were entering the field. Renarin's Blade was in his hand. Only a day had passed since Adolin's duel, so the blade had not yet had time to bind to its new wielder, which meant Renarin could not yet dismiss and summon it at will. The two princes were followed by Murk's squad. As they approached, Murk saluted them. "Captain."

Kaladin saluted back. "You and your squad are dismissed for the afternoon, Murk," he said. "We'll take it from here."

"Sir." Murk gestured to his men, and they turned and left the training ground.

Kaladin turned to Adolin. "The area is as secure as we can make it, Brightlord. My men and I will keep an eye out while you spar."

Adolin grunted without looking at Kaladin, instead surveying the field himself. Sarus caught Renarin's eye. There was a tension in the younger prince's face, as if he were trying to ignore a sore muscle or irritated rash.

"Sarus," Kaladin said, turning to him. "I want you by the water barrels, there. I'll take a post over by those fences."

"Understood, Captain," said Sarus with a crisp salute.

Kaladin nodded and turned to go towards his post.

"Bridgeman," Adolin called, forestalling him.

Not bridgemen, Sarus thought, and suddenly all of the years-old resentment he'd once held against Adolin Kholin, all the bitterness, envy, and impotent rage, came back in a rush. He wrestled them back down, but he knew Renarin had seen the way his eyes must have flashed and gone dark. Not anymore.

"You've decided to start using proper titles for people?" Adolin continued, not sparing Sarus a glance. "Didn't you call my father 'sir'?"

Kaladin turned back, his expression wooden. "He's in my direct chain of command."

"And I'm not?"

"No."

"Then if I give you an order, you don't intend to obey?"

"I'll comply with requests within reason, Brightlord," said Kaladin. "But if you want someone to shine your boots, you'll have to get someone else—"

Sarus cleared his throat, having successfully buried his sudden rush of fury. "What Captain Kaladin means," he said, "is that he cannot obey any commands of yours if they countermand Highprince Kholin's prior orders to protect you and your brother from any potential threat, Brightlord. He cannot promise to obey any command that might put our own mission at risk."

"Oh, is that what he means," Adolin said sarcastically, and oh, why had Sarus said anything? Now the young man's glare was on him. Not a position he wanted to be in.

But as he met Adolin's eyes, he suddenly realized that Adolin had no idea how this exchange felt from a darkeyes' perspective. He had no idea what it was like to be on the receiving end of an expression like that from someone who could kill you on a whim and suffer not one significant consequence.

Paradoxically, that made Sarus feel better. Because although it threw Adolin's sheer privilege into sharp relief, it also meant that he had no intention of actually harming any of them on a whim. He simply didn't think in those terms. If he hurt them, it would be out of thoughtlessness, not malice. And Sarus was more than capable of doing enough thinking for both sides of the conversation.

He thought back on what he knew of Adolin. Tailiah had always called him kind, if somewhat dim. She had said that he treated his servants with respect, even if that respect was sometimes tempered with entitlement.

Sarus… could use that.

"Yes, Brightlord," he said, holding the prince's gaze. "I humbly ask your indulgence, sir—if I may, Captain Kaladin and the rest of your new guards, myself included, were until recently bridgemen, and in many cases slaves, to Highprince Sadeas. Many of us have, to put it mildly, some difficulty adjusting to serving a house like Kholin, whose members would not sooner see us dead than smiling."

The words struck Adolin somewhere unarmored. Sarus saw the way his suspicion—did not die, but was suppressed behind layers of guilt and sympathy. "I… suppose I can understand that," he said. He shot Kaladin a look. "I still don't like you," he said flatly. "But… you did save my life. And my father's. And I suppose you took on some terrible risks to do it. I'll do my best to work with you if you do your best to stay out of my way."

Kaladin looked practically flabbergasted. But he had the presence of mind to nod. "I think I can agree to that much."

"Good," said Adolin. "Come on, Renarin, let's go find Zahel."

Sarus met Renarin's eyes again as the prince followed his brother towards where the two men were still practicing (badly, if Sarus was any judge) with the king's Shardblades. Renarin was smiling, slightly, although the expression seemed a little pale. Sarus noticed as he passed that the younger man's knuckles were white on the hilt of his Blade.

"How in Damnation did you do that?" Kaladin asked, staring after the princes with something like wonder.

"Tailiah knew Adolin when we were all younger, so I had a head start," said Sarus quietly. "But the principle is simple. If you know how a person's mind works, you can find the right words to say. If you find the right words to say, you can get them to do nearly anything."

"Sounds callous," Syl commented softly.

"I disagree," countered Archive. "The important part is not that manipulation is. It is that humans cannot be manipulated into anything. Only nearly anything. Honor lives in the difference."

"Hm." Syl watched the two princes approach the head ardent. They bowed formally to her before beginning to speak. "Hang on, isn't she a slave? One their father owns?"

"Technically, yes," said Sarus. "But the ardentia walk a very complex line between power and servitude."

"Humans don't make sense."

"Neither do spren," Archive said dryly.

"Honorspren make sense," said Syl primly.

"A disagreement is."

Syl snorted. "I don't like them," she said. "Either one of them. Renarin or Adolin."

"You don't like anyone who carries Shards," Kaladin said.

"Exactly."

"Why not?" Sarus asked curiously.

"She called the Blades abominations before," Kaladin said. "But the Radiants carried them, didn't they? So were they wrong, too?"

"Of course not," Syl said, looking down at Kaladin like he had just asked if the sky was red. "The Shards weren't abominations back then."

"Then what changed?"

"The knights changed," murmured Syl, looking sad.

"So it's not that the Blades are abominations themselves," Kaladin said, sounding bitterly triumphant. "It's that the wrong people are carrying them."

"No," said Archive. "Your biases are. Your prejudices are. You are not listening, Kaladin."

Kaladin blinked over at the speck on Sarus' shoulder. "What? What does Syl mean, then?"

"If Adolin lost his Shards in the duel yesterday," Archive said, "Syl's approval would immediately be."

"He could stand to be humbled some," Kaladin said.

Archive sighed in exasperation. "Your ears are," she said. "Why do you insist on not using them?"

"You're saying," said Sarus, interjecting before the squabbling could really start, "that something fundamental changed about the Shards. Something that had to do with the Radiants."

"There is a reason you are my Elsecaller," said Archive.

But you didn't come here for me, Sarus thought, then tried to bury the hurt.

"But what could have changed about the Shards?" Kaladin asked. "Besides, Syl said the Knights Radiant changed. Well, the Shards aren't being held by Knights Radiant anymore. So how does that even matter now?"

Sarus stared at Syl. He felt as though he was dangling just below the answer to that very question, searching for one more handhold to climb the rest of the way. Radiants are bonded to spren. Radiants bore Shardblades. Radiants betrayed their calling at the Recreance. Shardblades are abominations now. The Radiants changed, and somehow that changed their Shards.

The Recreance was the heart of it, he was certain. But what exactly had happened at the Recreance? He didn't know. He doubted Archive or Syl even remembered.

"Who's that?" Kaladin asked suddenly.

Sarus followed his gaze. There was a man standing in the shadows of the wall, leaning on the wooden railing, watching the princes. There was something about him… Sarus frowned, narrowing his eyes.

Was the air… different around the man? It almost looked like the very colors of the red stone around his feet were somehow more vibrant.

"What about him?" Syl asked.

"He's watching the princelings," Kaladin said.

"Do me a favor," said Sarus. "Never call them that within their hearing."

Kaladin grinned.

"So is everyone else," Syl pointed out.

"He's different." Kaladin glanced at Sarus. "You see it, right? You have an instinct for people."

"There's… something odd about him. Be careful."

"Sure," Kaladin said. "I'm always careful."

"That's not encouraging." But Sarus followed Kaladin as he approached the man.

As they drew near, Kaladin's foot scraped against a patch of sand upon the stone. The man immediately spun towards them, and Kaladin, startled, leveled his spear. Then, after a long moment, he lowered it. "Sorry," he said, making Sarus wince at his painfully affected tone of childish innocence. "I'm a little jumpy. First few weeks on the job."

"Right," said the man dryly. He looked past Kaladin at Sarus, then back again. Then he turned away and looked back at the princes. "You're the bridgemen. The ones who saved the highprince."

"Former bridgemen," said Sarus stiffly. He had to accept it from Adolin Kholin. He did not have to accept it from an ardent, no matter how odd of one.

"You don't need to worry. I'm not going to hurt your Damnation prince," said the man. Sarus couldn't even begin to place his accent—which was odd, given that he and Tailiah had made accents and foreign customs something of a study. And who used Damnation that way, anyway? It was grammatically wrong, using the noun Damnation like an adjective. It was almost as though… as though the man were translating the words he was saying directly into Alethi from a different language, word by word, without worrying too much about the differences in grammatical rules. He also wore the simple tunic and trousers of an ardent, but his hair was long rather than shaved close, and his beard was similarly unkempt.

"He's not our prince," said Kaladin stiffly. "Just our responsibility. You're a soldier, aren't you? Or ex-soldier."

"Yeah," said the man. "They call me Zahel."

"The princes were looking for you," Sarus observed. That the princes knew this man suggested they didn't need to fear him. Still, he found himself wary.

"They would be," he said. "I'm one of the swordmasters. One of the better ones. The boy—Renarin—he never practiced much, so he needs one. They probably want me to choose him."

"Choose him?" Kaladin asked.

"Swordmasters have to choose their apprentices," said Sarus. "Although I imagine that choice isn't entirely free when it's the highprince's son as the apprentice in question."

Zahel grunted.

"Swordmaster Zahel!" called Adolin, noticing them. "You're not sitting with the others!"

Sarus looked over and saw that, yes, several of the ardents—mostly the ones who looked well-trained and physically fit—were seated in a small ring near the princes.

Zahel sighed. "You're not wrong," he told Sarus dryly. "I'll try not to hurt the boy." He turned and jogged over.

"Why didn't Renarin ever train when he was younger?" Kaladin asked. He sounded like he was talking mostly to himself, but Sarus answered.

"Health issues," he said. "Renarin suffered from what the lighteyes called a 'blood sickness.' Seizures."

"Ah." Kaladin grimaced. "Seems like something his bodyguards should already have known about."

"It's common knowledge among the lighteyes," Sarus said. "I assume it didn't occur to them that the new darkeyed guards wouldn't already know."

Kaladin grumbled something inaudible. "Odd man," he commented, looking where Zahel was sitting down among the other ardents.

"Extremely," agreed Sarus. "But probably harmless, if the Kholins trust him to teach their sons to use Shards. Still, we'll keep an eye on him."

"Two eyes," Kaladin said. He nodded to Sarus. "Get over to the barrels, there," he said, pointing. "I'll see you in a few hours, when they're done training."

Sarus saluted and jogged off.

-x-x-x-

Two hours later, Sarus watched a sweating Renarin stab his Shardblade into the ground, looking like a towel that had been wrung out a little too vigorously. The moment the Blade was securely in the rock, he tore his hand away like a child pulling his hand from a hot pan. He bowed stiffly to Zahel, then said something to Adolin and picked up his Blade again. Then he started moving towards the water barrels.

…Directly towards Sarus.

Sarus kept his expression serene as Renarin stopped beside one of the barrels and poured himself a cup with the attached spigot. "Hello, Sarus," said the prince quietly.

"Renarin."

Renarin straightened and drank from his cup. "I've been trying to get you alone for weeks," he said. "I didn't… I know how much you value the ability to control who knows what about you."

Sarus' heart suddenly surged with affection for the younger man, who even all these years later still not only remembered Sarus, but remembered him well enough to know without being told how carefully he liked to tread around lighteyes. "I appreciate it," he said softly. He glanced towards the gate, where Kaladin was gathering with the other members of Bridge Four as Adolin prepared to leave. He gestured, pointing at Sarus, then at Renarin.

Excellent. Sarus saluted over at the captain. "I have, it seems, just been assigned as your bodyguard until such time as you rejoin your family," he said. "So we have a few minutes."

"Good," said Renarin with a sigh, stabbing his Blade back into the rock. He looked over to watch Kaladin and the rest of the guards following Adolin out of the training ground.

"Is he gone?" The voice emerged quite suddenly from somewhere under Renarin's Plate. Before Sarus could do more than blink, the voice continued, "Oh, thank Cultivation."

And then something emerged from the collar of Renarin's plate. It was a spren, clearly, but like none Sarus had ever seen before. Its body looked like an irregular, vaguely star-shaped chunk of red crystal, and motes of light dripped from it like glittering water, only they sailed upwards to disappear into the empty sky. Something about it felt odd to Sarus, as though it didn't sit quite right in his vision, its edges fuzzing slightly, though somehow not diminishing its clarity in any way.

Sarus blinked at it, staring for a long moment, before he managed to realize through his astonishment that this spren probably believed itself invisible and hurriedly looking back at Renarin.

Unfortunately, the damage was done. "Damnation," the spren cursed, and dove back into Renarin's Plate.

Renarin blinked, looking at Sarus. His eyes widened. "Wait—"

Sarus very quickly took stock. He could play dumb. Or he could pretend to be nothing more than what Rock was, clear-sighted but unaware of the implications. Or he could be open with Renarin. His instincts rebelled at the thought. Sarus didn't trust people, as a rule, not if he had any other choice.

…Except, Renarin had done his best not to reveal anything about Sarus' past before they'd had a chance to speak directly. Even more than five years after the last time they'd spoken, he still remembered Sarus's proclivities and cared about them enough to indulge him like this. It would have been so easy for the third-dahn son of a highprince to simply come up to one of his bodyguards and demand answers. Renarin had not done so.

In exchange… maybe Sarus owed him a little trust. And, more to the point, Renarin had proven willing to keep secrets. Letting him in on more would go a long way to tying them together in Renarin's mind. Extend a little trust, gain a little influence. Offer some information, claim some affection.

"You're a Radiant, then," Sarus said softly.

They were all silent for a long moment. Then Archive chuckled and expanded on Sarus' shoulder, remaining small enough to be hidden from anyone else in the field, but large enough to be visible to them. "Your luck is," she told Sarus. "To meet a fellow Radiant in an old friend… yes. Your fortune is."

Renarin stared at Archive, fascinated. "You too?" he asked Sarus. "You're also—"

"I am," Sarus confirmed. "This is Archive, an inkspren."

"A pleasure," Renarin said, nodding respectfully, though his eyes remained unerringly fixed on the spren. Then he turned them on Sarus. "Forgive Glys if he doesn't come out. He's… shy."

"Glys?" asked Archive, cocking her head. "What sort of spren is he? I do not recognize the name."

"He's a mistspren," said Renarin.

"Then you are a Truthwatcher," Archive said. "An order that, I believe, worked well with the Elsecallers of old."

"Is that what you are?" Renarin asked Sarus. "An Elsecaller?"

"It is," said Sarus.

"What are your Surges?"

"Transformation and Transportation," said Archive.

"Yours?" Sarus asked.

"Illumination and Progression," Renarin said. "Wow. I knew there had to be a story behind how you ended up on Sadeas' bridge crews of all things, but I didn't expect this."

Sarus' face fell. "Archive had nothing to do with that," he said. "I only met her a few months ago, long after I arrived here."

"Months?" Renarin blinked. "I thought most bridgemen in Sadeas' crews died in a matter of weeks. How long were you here?"

"Five years," said Sarus darkly. "Since the war began."

"Since the—" Renarin stopped, staring at him. "What happened?"

Sarus tried to smile wryly. It emerged as a grimace. "Tailiah died. And I—" The damning words I killed her caught in his throat, so he said obliquely, "it was my fault."

He still didn't understand what had happened that night. But the fact was that one minute Tailiah had been there, wide-eyed and afraid…

…And the next, there had been only smoke.

Last edited: May 22, 2023

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May 15, 2023

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Threadmarks 35: Dullform

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

Subscriber

May 22, 2023

#1,051

Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

35

Dullform

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Not many of us survived those purges. Most who did crept into tunnels deep beneath the mountains, hiding like the worms for which Men named us.

-x-x-x-

Rlain didn't look up as Sarus sat down on the bunk beside his. He simply continued to slump there, the cot bending around him, eyes forward and gazing at nothing.

Rlain had taken dullform before, of course. Like every other Listener, he had spent shifts in the Hall of Art trying to attract spren to experiment with new forms in the early days of the war. It was why he had elected to take up this position as a spy—he had found that his mind seemed to work better than many of the others', when they failed to bond a spren and fell into dullform.

But the longest he had ever been in dullform before coming to the Alethi camp had been two weeks. He was now pushing a year and a half. And for the past few months of that, he hadn't even spoken to another Listener—not since he had been sent to the bridge crews. It wasn't possible for a bridgeman to clandestinely meet with another Listener scout.

Sometimes he wondered if he would wake up one morning and find that dullform had given way to slaveform. If he would find himself not Listener, but parshman. Maybe that was how the other singers had become the mindless thralls they were—maybe the spren had rejected them so completely, so utterly, that all of them had been trapped in dullform for so long that their minds simply… faded away.

The most terrifying part was that he couldn't even muster terror at the thought. Just a yawning, existential dread.

The only saving grace of this assignment was that there was no one who could hear the Rhythms here. So he didn't need to force himself to attune Peace or Resolve in moments like these. He could follow his natural inclinations. Right now, that inclination was to attune Anxiety.

Sometimes he even forced himself to enhance his own natural inclinations by attuning a rhythm whose associated negative emotion he was only barely feeling. Because even an awful Rhythm like Despair, Betrayal, or Pain was so, so much better than the horrible silence. Sometimes, Rlain lost the Rhythms entirely, as though the blanket constantly smothering his thoughts had closed up entirely around his ears. In those moments, the dread that he might be turning into a parshman clarified into a deep horror… but still with none of the sharp pressure, none of the push to act, that terror would have provided.

There was no instinct to act in dullform. Never. Any time Rlain did anything, he had to force himself to make the choice. All he ever really wanted to do was simply sit, like a stone in the bottom of a chasm, occasionally pushed hither or thither by the storm—the will and desires of others—but never his own volition.

Outside, the highstorm was passing. Rlain had forced himself not to attune any of the Rhythms or channel the emotions that would attract a spren for the duration. As much as he longed for it, craved to feel one of the forms again, to feel a spren pulsing within his gemheart, he couldn't. Mustn't.

"You aren't just acting, are you?" Sarus asked softly. His voice was low enough that none of the other men in the barracks, most of whom were laughing as they played a game with cards around Gadol's bunk. "I wondered how you managed to act like a parshman for so long, but it's not entirely an act, is it?"

"No," whispered Rlain. "Not entirely."

"What is it, then?" Sarus asked. "Are all Parshendi like you—do you just think differently from us?"

"We do, but not like this." Rlain very briefly debated whether to keep these secrets from Sarus, but, well, Sarus already knew the most important secret. It wasn't as though knowing about the existence of the forms would be any worse. Besides, if he couldn't trust Sarus he was both already dead and the reason all of the other scouts within the Alethi warcamps would join his fate.

He really needed to find a way to make contact with one of the others. It was just so hard to make himself do the long, frustrating, and risky legwork of finding them. He had known only about his own contact, Lashra, and the Listeners had only become a unified whole five short years ago, a year of which had seen him here, isolated and alone. He simply would not know the marbling of most, if any, of the other spies. And while he could probably identify most of them through the other, subtler markers distinguishing dullform from slaveform—size, volition, intellect—it would be difficult. More to the point, it would require diligence and focus, both of which were things Rlain found it very, very difficult to muster these days.

"Listeners bond to spren to take forms," he said once he remembered that he'd been speaking to Sarus, that he'd decided to say more.

"Bond to spren? Like the Radiants?"

"I believe it's similar. The spren involved are not sentient, however, like Archive or Syl. They are ordinary spren, and some of them can be tempted into a Listener's gemheart to grant them a form. Our forms grant us capabilities and skills, and affect our minds to some degree. When we bond no spren at all, we fall into dullform. This is what I am. A form of no skill, no aptitude. While in dullform, our thoughts are clouded. It makes it… easier, to be like the parshmen. Sometimes too easy."

He had attuned Anxiety again while he spoke. Sometimes, he thought Sarus could hear the Rhythms, if not as a Listener did, then at least as an echo. He seemed adept at detecting Rlain's emotions, sometimes more than Rlain himself was. "You're afraid you're becoming more like them? Permanently?"

"I am," Rlain admitted. "We do not know what turned the other singers into the parshmen."

"Turned the—then you're the same species? And they once had minds like yours, but somehow lost them?"

"So our songs tell us," said Rlain. "Generations ago, all singers served our gods, but we listeners chose to flee their service, to pursue freedom in isolation. Sometime between those days and now, the rest of the singers became parshmen. I do not know how, and I do not know why we were spared."

"Fascinating," murmured Sarus. "This all ties together somehow, I feel it. Nahel bonds, the singers becoming parshmen, the change in the Shardblades. What is the missing piece?"

"What missing piece?" Rlain asked, and then was surprised at himself. Sarus had a way of bringing out his self from behind the fog of dullform. It was usually hard to muster something like curiosity, but with Sarus it was easier.

Sarus clasped his hands thoughtfully. "Syl and Archive consider Shardblades abominations," he said. "But neither remembers exactly why. Syl believes something changed in the Knights Radiant, who were the original wielders of the Blades, to turn their once-noble weapons into something that is now so repulsive to the very spren who gave them their powers. I suspect that such a dramatic change must be the Recreance, or at least some part of whatever happened at the Recreance." He tilted his head upward slightly, eyes fixing upon the shutters over the window high on the wall. "Nahel bonds," he said to himself. "Transformations. The Radiants betraying their calling. The Recreance. The Shards. And now, the singers and the parshmen. There's a connection there. If the bond you form with lesser spren is qualitatively the same as the Nahel bond I share with Archive, which I suspect it is, then these events may all share a common thread."

"We had already parted from the rest of the singers by the time any of this happened," said Rlain. "The last songs we have which remember humans at all still sing of your Neshua Kadal, your Knights Radiant, as something that still existed. So that must have been before the Recreance, unless all our songs of that event were somehow lost."

"In fairness, even our written records of those times are littered with more chasms than the Plains," muttered Sarus. "To Damnation with the Hierocracy, and with the storming Sunmaker."

At that moment, the barracks door opened. Sarus glanced over, then stood up. Rlain followed his gaze to see that Kaladin was stomping inside. There was a thunderous scowl on his face.

"Oh, Storms," Sarus muttered. He gave Rlain a nod, then approached Kaladin.

"Back to your game, men," Kaladin said, waving at Gadol and the others and visibly trying and failing to suppress his scowl. "Still a few hours before shift change." Then he turned to Sarus.

"What happened?" Sarus asked, and Rlain found himself listening in.

"I talked to Dalinar," Kaladin said, voice quiet enough that even Rlain's singer ears could barely hear. "About Amaram."

"I take it by your expression that it didn't go well."

"No," Kaladin said grimly. "And all Syl can say about it is that I'm not supposed to be like this. Apparently, I'm 'not a Skybreaker.' Whatever that means."

"Hm. What did the highprince say?"

"He said he'd talk to Amaram." Kaladin bared his teeth. Rlain was startled. He'd never seen the captain like this, surly, grim, and practically vicious. "And then immediately chewed me out for insubordination."

"Insub—" Sarus cut himself off, eyes narrowing. "Wait. Chewed you out? What exactly did he say?"

"He said I walk a line between helpfulness and insubordination, and that I have 'a chip on my shoulder the size of a boulder'. Then he sent me away and told me he'd use one of the Queen Dowager's guards as his escort for the night."

"Ah." Sarus' expression was odd. Rlain had never gotten the hang of reading human faces, even in more than a year among them. "I suspect he actually does intend to investigate."

"How the Damnation do you figure that?"

"Because his actions—look. If he thought that you accusing Amaram of the theft of a Shardblade and several murders was insubordinate, he wouldn't have said you were walking a line. No, Highprince Dalinar Kholin is… His mind doesn't work like yours or mine, or any darkeyes' can afford to, Kaladin. He doesn't approach conversation the way we do."

"What are you even talking about?"

"Listen, and I'll get to it—don't take this out on me. Highprince Dalinar is used to being the person who speaks while others listen. That he allows other people to express their thoughts at all is a testament to his character. But nonetheless, he is not easily derailed. I suspect, Kaladin, that his comments about insubordination would have come your way this evening even if you hadn't said a single word about Amaram. He wasn't talking about that at all, I don't think—he was talking about how you treat Prince Adolin and King Elhokar. It's just that, once he decided to speak to you about it, nothing short of a Parshendi assault was going to derail him. It wouldn't even occur to him that you might perceive his comment as referring to your accusation, because in his mind the two conversations are entirely separate."

There was silence for a moment. "Storms, it almost sounds reasonable when you lay it out like that," Kaladin said with a soft curse. "How do you do that? Come up with a whole narrative of what a man's thinking when you weren't even there for the conversation?"

"Your weapon is the spear, Kaladin," Sarus said. "I'm a decent spearman, but my weapon has always been my mind, and its tip has always been my ability to understand people. Highprince Dalinar is, comparatively speaking, a simple man, so long as you're able to let go of a few common assumptions." He sighed. "Storms. The Kholins seem almost determined to drive you away. First Prince Adolin's mistrust and open hostility, now this?"

"And you really don't think any of it's deliberate?"

"I'm quite certain it isn't. Both men are just storming idiots in a few key ways that happen to irritate you in particular. And you have a few rough edges that happen to rub exactly against Prince Adolin's weaknesses."

"Storms, Sarus. You're asking me to just trust that Dalinar's going to look into Amaram? When I know for a fact that every eyewitness is either dead or loyal to him, besides me?"

"You told Dalinar that?"

"Of course I did!"

"Then yes, I am asking exactly that. These things take time, Kaladin. Dalinar is trying to put down his sword and become a political actor, and we should all thank the Almighty that he's erring on the side of caution rather than trying to bowl over everyone in his path the way the Blackthorn once did on the battlefield. But the dun of that sphere is that we have to wait for results with something like this. Don't do anything rash."

Kaladin sighed, looking less angry now, but much more exhausted. "I won't."

"Good," Sarus said. He shook his head. "I'm going outside for a moment. I need to think."

"About this?" Kaladin asked dryly. "Me too."

"I'm fairly confident in my assessment, Kaladin," Sarus reassured. "Please. Just trust in what you know of Dalinar, and in my ability to read people. You've seen me in action a few times now."

"I have. I do." Kaladin shook his head. "I'm going to get some rest before shift change. You still willing to watch Prince Renarin in the morning?"

"Of course." Sarus saluted, then left the barrack.

Rlain watched Kaladin cross the room and fall into his customary seat by the hearth. He stared thoughtfully into the flames.

And, well, hearing about Kaladin apparently testing Dalinar's commitment in some way reminded Rlain of something he'd been meaning to do. It was risky, but he felt as though it was a risk worth taking.

Trying not to attune Anxiety for fear that Kaladin might somehow recognize it for what it was, Rlain approached him and squatted down beside him.

Kaladin blinked at him. "Shen?"

"Sir." Rlain stared at him for a moment, trying to get his foggy mind to put together the words the way he wanted them. Perhaps he should have discussed this with Sarus in advance—the lieutenant always knew how to make Kaladin understand others' perspectives, as he'd just done in their conversation about Dalinar. But, then, there was always a chance Sarus wouldn't approve of this.

After all, as much as Rlain liked him, as much as his presence helped stave off the fog of dullform, Sarus was still human, and Rlain was still technically his enemy.

"Is there something you wanted?" Kaladin prompted.

Rlain hesitated. But, in for a cremling, in for a chasmfiend. "Am I really Bridge Four?" he asked.

"Of course you are." Kaladin looked genuinely confused.

"Where is my spear?"

Kaladin blinked, then held Rlain's gaze. "What do you think would happen if I gave a parshman a spear, Shen?"

"I think," said Rlain, throwing caution, if not to the stormwind, then at least to a light spring breeze. "that I am not Bridge Four. I think I am Bridge Four's slave."

Kaladin let out a sharp breath. It took Rlain a moment to realize that the words seemed to have quite literally winded the captain like a blow to the stomach. "Shen," he said quietly. "I can't arm you. The lighteyes barely tolerate us as it is. I appreciate your help while we were scavenging; I know it was difficult for you to see what we did down there, sometimes."

Unconsciously, Rlain found himself attuning the Rhythm of the Lost. No you don't, he thought, but he wasn't angry. And that wasn't just the muting effect of dullform. He had been furious in the moment, furious enough that it had penetrated even through the fog over his thoughts, but now… he understood. He hated it, but he understood.

Better to desecrate corpses than to allow his friends to join them.

"You are a part of Bridge Four," Kaladin continued. "Storms know you've been through at least as much as any of us. You are one of us. But I can't give you a spear. Think of the storm it would cause."

Rlain heard everything the man was saying. And he acknowledged it was probably largely true. But… You're willing to be actively insubordinate against Dalinar's son, and to accuse one of his own personal friends of murder to his face, but you won't risk his ire just to give me a way to defend myself?

He welcomed the anger, the hurt, and allowed himself to attune Betrayal for just a moment before letting it fade into Pain. "A slave I am, then," he said, standing up and turning away from Kaladin. The captain—the human—let him go without another word.

Less than a minute later, before Rlain had done more than laid down in his bunk, Natam burst into the barrack. "The King!" he exclaimed, face red with exertion. He had clearly sprinted all the way to the barracks from wherever he had been stationed. Behind him, Rlain saw Sarus coming inside, looking curious and wary. "An assassin!"

Every man in the barrack jumped to his feet. Even Rlain rose.

"Battah's plucked eyelashes," swore Murk as Kaladin sprinted past Natam without waiting for another word. "What happened?"

"He's alive," Natam said hastily between gulps of air. "An attempt. He's unhurt."

Every other man in the barrack relaxed. Sarus sighed. "You couldn't have led with that?"

Natam might have flushed. He was already so red it was hard to tell. "Sorry, sir."

"No harm done," Sarus said. "Unless, of course, Kaladin trips and falls down a chasm on the way up to the palace, in which case I'm sure every one of us will hold you personally responsible." He grinned. "That was a joke."

"Ha, ha," said Natam dutifully. But somehow, despite the fact that no one had actually laughed, Sarus' words had broken the tension.

"Still," said Sarus, "I'd best follow him. Murk, you have command."

"Got it."

Sarus gave Rlain a quick nod, then turned and left the barrack, jogging after Kaladin. Rlain, seeing no reason to do anything else, laid down and tried to sleep.

If Sarus had remained, Rlain thought he would have liked to speak to him about his conversation with Kaladin. Would Sarus have disapproved of his desire to have a spear of his own? It wasn't as though he wanted to use it on the humans. Sarus would have seen that, surely. But, then again, Sarus was human, like Kaladin. He might not care about the Alethi armies and the war at large, but if there was even a small risk to Kaladin or the men?

Sarus would do exactly what he was doing now. Running out into the night just to make sure Kaladin didn't fall into a chasm. Leaving Rlain surrounded by men who didn't understand him, completely alone.

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LithosMaitreya

May 22, 2023

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Threadmarks 36: Trust

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

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May 29, 2023

#1,057

Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

36

Trust

-x-x-x-

For myself, I fled south. That was a dangerous road, for it took me nearer to Gondor. I traveled by night, first following the Anduin with the Misty Mountain beneath my right wing. I then turned left, crossing over the vastness of the Greenwood in a single long flight, six days without landing..

-x-x-x-

Sarus found Kaladin slumped against a wall, catching his breath as he looked into the king's study. Inside, the whole Kholin family had gathered. Elhokar was seemingly berating the captain of the King's Guard, a soldier in Kholin blue named Idrin. Frustratingly, he seemed to be pointing out Kaladin as a better example of a guard—which would make integrating Bridge Four with the other soldiers even harder than it already was.

"Moash," called Kaladin between gasps of air. Sarus followed his gaze and saw that, yes, Moash was there among the others. Leyten and Malop were supposed to be here—it was their shift—but Moash had finished his shift watching Elhokar over an hour ago. "You're supposed to be back at the barrack."

"So are you," Moash pointed out.

Sarus narrowed his eyes at the man. No, Kaladin was not supposed to be asleep. True, Kaladin's shift had been slated to end at the same time Moash's did. And, true, Dalinar had dismissed him early. But Kaladin was captain of Bridge Four—of course he would come the moment they received word of an attempted assassination.

What was Moash doing here?

"Were you here when it happened?" Kaladin asked.

"I'd just left after my shift with the King's Guard." He beckoned. "Come see."

He led Sarus and Kaladin out onto the balcony. Sarus' eyes widened at the site. The iron railing had fallen out of its mountings and was now dangling over the edge, leaving the rain-slick stone of the balcony just one careless step from a hundred-foot drop onto the irregular rock of the Plains. Several other King's Guard members were examining the damage with sphere lamps, but they parted to give the three of them room to see.

"From what we can tell, the king came out here to think after the storm. Then…" Moash gestured at the torn railing, "this."

Kaladin knelt by the empty footings where the railing had been mounted. "The railing just pulled free?" he ran his finger along the opening, then examined the mortar dust that came free. "Could just be a flaw in the design."

"Captain, I was here when it happened," one of the guardsmen said. "It fell right out, barely a sound. He leans on that railing often, sir, and it's never done anything like that before."

"Hm." Kaladin stood and walked to another section of the railing, testing it with a push. It held. It didn't so much as budge. Sarus walked past him to examine the point where the railing had separated to allow one portion to fall while the rest held.

"Kaladin," he said, too quietly for the other guardsmen to hear, touching the perfectly smooth edge where the railing had been severed cleanly at a joint. "Look."

Kaladin followed his gaze. His expression hardened. He gave Sarus a nod, then turned and strode back inside to speak to Dalinar.

Sarus remained outside, on the balcony. "What was your name, again?" he asked the guard who had admitted to being present at the time.

"Lauck, sir."

Sarus grinned self-deprecatingly. "None of that 'sir' business," he said. "I lucked into this position. Captain Kaladin is deserving of all the respect he gets, but I'm just a man who happened to be next to him when he did incredible things."

Lauck huffed a soft laugh. "There are rumors all over camp about it," he said. "Is it true he single-handedly killed an entire Parshendi battalion?"

"I think by that point there wasn't enough organization left on the field to have battalions," Sarus said. "At least not that we could tell. But his spear tasted a great deal of their orange blood that day." He glanced over at the dangling railing. "How did His Majesty avoid falling, Lauck? And who else was on duty at the time?"

"Well, he caught himself on the railing where it's dangling there," said Lauck, pointing. "And then I came out and helped him back onto the balcony. As for who else was on duty, no one was inside the room with a view of things besides me. But two of your men—Leyten and Malop, I think?—were both stationed right outside the door, and Daletel, Tus, Velis, and Ameril were elsewhere in the palace."

"Where in the palace?"

"Daletel and Tus were stationed at the end of the corridor, by the northern stairwell. Velis and Ameril were patrolling the foyer."

"Excellent," said Sarus. "You don't happen to know who all was on the previous shift, do you? And where they were stationed?"

Lauck frowned, visibly trying to remember. "Melit, Draun, Brovash, Dake, Pevral, Gaen, and… one of your men, I think. Don't remember who. And I don't know where any of them were stationed, sorry. Someone would probably have been in here, though; I'd have thought they'd see something."

Moash. "Have there been any recent recruitments to the King's Guard?"

Lauck's eyes widened. "You don't think one of us did this somehow, do you?"

"No," Sarus quickly reassured him. "No, of course I don't. But…" he hesitated, making a show of looking over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. "You know how His Majesty can get, sometimes," he said. "He worries about assassins. Understandably, given what happened to his father. But if I can get enough information to explicitly clear everyone, it'll make all our jobs easier going forward. No one actually suspects any of you, it's just about reassuring His Majesty."

"Oh, that makes sense." Lauck looked relieved. "But no, no one joined the Guard recently. Everyone who was on duty today's been in the unit since… at least a year ago? I think the last man to join up was Pevral, and he signed on in Shash of last year."

"That'll be a relief to His Majesty, I'm sure," said Sarus, smiling at Lauck. "Thanks, Lauck. I'll go report that back to the Captain."

"Of course."

Sarus turned and went back inside, thoughtful. He approached Kaladin just in time to hear Dalinar saying, "The king is insisting that I put you in charge—" he stopped, glancing over Kaladin's shoulder at Sarus.

Kaladin followed his gaze. "Sarus," he said. "You find anything out?"

"Nothing immediately helpful," said Sarus, knowing that he couldn't make even the most oblique accusations within Dalinar's hearing. He saluted the highprince. "Did I hear right? Is Bridge Four being placed in charge of His Majesty's safety as well?"

Dalinar studied him for a long moment. Those pale blue eyes in that heavy-set face were, if not suspicious, then at least wary.

Sarus, for one glittering moment, hated the man. He had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Kaladin on the rock of the Tower. He had been there when they had pulled Dalinar through the line of Parshendi—Listeners, as Rlain called his people. Yet while Kaladin had quickly become one of Dalinar's most trusted confidantes, at least among his darkeyed servants and soldiers, Sarus was still deserving only of suspicion.

Then he remembered what happened to the last lighteyes who let him get close, and the hate turned to bile in his mouth.

"Yes," Dalinar finally said, seemingly deciding that Sarus could be trusted.

"I'm not ready," Kaladin said. "My men are stretched thin as it is, sir, and we still haven't got the other former bridgemen properly trained. Not even close."

"I know. But—you realize this was done on the inside?"

Kaladin nodded grimly. "Whoever it was had to have come from inside this chamber," he said.

"And men in the King's Guard might have had access to his armor, too, that day when his Plate broke months ago." Dalinar's face looked ghastly pale in the spherelight, like a specter haunting the Plains. "I don't know who I can trust these days. Can I trust you, Kaladin Stormblessed?"

"Yes, sir," said Kaladin firmly. "I swear it."

I told you, Sarus thought with some satisfaction. Dalinar was a man who trampled over any attempt to openly redirect his thoughts, but he was not angry with Kaladin. Not really. He saw Kaladin as a kindred spirit, an honorable man in a sea of madness and disdain. He would investigate Amaram. Whether he would find the truth, however, depended on more than just his willingness to trust Kaladin.

That, however, Sarus could probably find a way to help with.

"And you trust your men?" Dalinar asked.

"I do." There wasn't a trace of doubt in Kaladin's voice.

Damnation, thought Sarus.

"I'm going to relieve Idrin of his post and give him a command in my army," said Dalinar. "It will sate the king, and I'll make certain he knows he's not being punished. To help bolster your numbers, I'll ask him for his best men and assign them to you. But in the long run, I want only men from the bridge crews—men you trust, men who have ample reason to hate Sadeas and no part in warcamp politics—watching him. Choose carefully. I don't want to replace probably loyal men with easily-bought former thieves."

"Yes, sir. Sir—this wasn't the assassination attempt you were expecting, was it?"

"No. This wasn't the work of someone who knows what they're doing. If Sadeas—or worse, the man who killed my brother—decides to strike, things will go far worse for us. We need to make ready quickly, or the storm will rip us from the stone like weak rockbuds." Dalinar turned and left the room.

Kaladin turned to Sarus. "We need to rework the schedules," he said, looking and sounding suddenly exhausted. "We're not just going to be sending a few people alongside the King's Guard patrols. Now they're our patrols."

"Yes," Sarus said. An idea was forming in his head. A way to, hopefully, keep Elhokar safe from the traitor in their midst without forcing Kaladin to confront the possibility that one of his men might turn against them until Sarus at least had more real evidence.

A way which had the added benefit of giving Sarus the influence, the power, he so desperately craved.

"I can take charge of the patrols over the king," he said. "I know His Majesty rubs you the wrong way."

Kaladin grimaced. "Dalinar put me in charge of Elhokar's guard, though."

"He also made you a Captain," Sarus countered. "You have command of over a thousand men, now, even if most of them are still in training. He expects you to delegate. You have to delegate. You're being given responsibilities based, not on what you can do personally, but on what you can organize people into doing. I'm not saying you'll never have to watch His Majesty personally—you will, if only because you've impressed the king and he'll complain if he feels like you aren't giving his safety the attention it deserves. But I can take over most of the time."

Kaladin looked at him thoughtfully. Then he nodded. "Fine," he said. "I won't lie, it's a relief. You get along better with the lighteyes than I do."

"I think Dalinar would disagree," Sarus commented with a small smile, burying the poison deep.

"Dalinar's different. You said it yourself." Kaladin shook his head, looking out at the balcony, still dimly illuminated by the sphere lamps. "I don't like this," he said quietly. "I'm supposed to protect these people from threats I can't see, threats I barely understand. I don't even like some of these people, but they're putting me in charge of their survival?"

"Who better," Sarus asked softly, "than a Windrunner?"

Kaladin's lips twisted. It wasn't a happy expression. "I suppose," he said. "I'm going back to the barracks. You coming too?"

Sarus glanced around. Adolin had left, following his father, and so had Navani. Only Renarin and Elhokar remained. Renarin was standing in a corner, methodically wiping down his spectacles, carefully avoiding everyone's gazes. The king, meanwhile, seemed about to leave, beckoning his current guards—three of whom were of the original King's Guard, joined by Leyten and Malop. Renarin's only guard at the moment was Treff, who seemed to be on the verge of nodding off.

"I don't think I could sleep now anyway," Sarus said, turning back to Kaladin. "And I want to introduce myself to the king, see if he has anything he wants me to look at now. He'll be pleased to see the man you placed in charge of his guard taking initiative."

"I suppose," Kaladin said. "You planning to take this shift from someone?"

"I think so," Sarus said. "I really don't think I could sleep now, I slept some during the storm." He glanced over. "Treff, you want to head back to the barrack?"

Treff blinked at him, clearly barely awake. "Uh. I mean. It's my shift?"

"I'll take over." Sarus grinned at him. "Go, it's been an exciting night. Get some rest."

Treff shot Kaladin a glance, but Kaladin just nodded, looking amused. Treff shot Sarus a grateful smile, then scurried away.

"Get some rest," Sarus told Kaladin. "I'll see you at shift change."

Kaladin gave him a nod, then turned and left.

Sarus stood looking after him for a long moment, then turned just in time to see the king leaving the chamber. "Your Majesty!" he called.

Elhokar turned. "Yes?"

Sarus approached and bowed low. "Your Majesty, I am Sarus. One of Captain Kaladin's lieutenants, and the best of his spearmen. He's placed me in charge of your guard, so long as you're amenable to the appointment."

"He trusts you?" Elhokar asks suspiciously.

"He does," Sarus said. "He has returned to the barracks, but you can confirm with him in the morning."

"I will," Elhokar said stiffly. "So long as he and my uncle both approve, I accept your appointment."

A king shouldn't be looking to his uncle for approval, Sarus thought, but he didn't say anything. Apart from everything else, a king who was uncertain in his decisions was one Sarus could easily influence. "Before you retire for the evening," Sarus said, "I just wanted to ask if there was anything in particular you wanted me to investigate. Anyone you suspect, or any information that might be useful to an investigation."

Elhokar studied him with narrowed eyes. "You're really taking this seriously? You don't think it was just an accident?"

"I have no strong evidence whether or not it was an accident," said Sarus. "But this is your safety we're talking about, Your Majesty. It is my duty to assume the worst."

Elhokar tried—and failed—to hide his relief. "I'm glad to hear you think so," he said. "I don't know who could have done this. Several of the highprinces might think their positions would be improved by my death, whether rightly or wrongly. Highprince Sadeas… is at the top of the list." The king looked sad about that. Sarus wondered what his relationship to Sadeas had been before the man had left his uncle to die.

"I see," said Sarus. "I am not… welcome, in the Sadeas warcamp, to say the least. But I will see about employing people to investigate on my behalf. Please let me know if you think of anything else that may be useful for an investigation."

"I will," Elhokar promised. "It's good to have a guard who takes his duty seriously."

"I'm sure many of your guards take their duties seriously," said Sarus. "But most, I suspect, do not have my particular skills or temperament. Rest easy, Your Majesty—I will allow no harm to come to you."

"Good. Farewell… Sarus, was it?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. Sleep well."

Elhokar left, followed by his current guards. With him gone, Sarus turned and stood at attention just outside the room's doors, positioning himself so that he would be visible and identifiable from inside. Renarin stepped outside a moment later to join him. "That was impressive," he said quietly.

"Elhokar is not a complicated man. He fears for his safety, which is reasonable. He worries that this fear is cause for shame, and that makes him even more fearful that being a shameful king will make him an even larger target. His anxieties circle one another like axehounds. All I needed to do was relieve some of that tension."

"And now you're in charge of his guard," Renarin observed. "That'll be an opportunity for you, won't it?"

"So I hope."

Renarin shot him a sudden look. "You won't hurt him, will you?"

"I have no intention of doing so," Sarus said. "If I did, I certainly wouldn't be openly angling to take charge of his safety. Besides, if he dies, my best chance at improving my position dies with him."

Sarus might have no particular loyalty for Alethkar anymore. He certainly had no loyalty to the Listeners either, despite liking Rlain. But he found that for all his bitterness, he was loyal to Kaladin. To the rest of Bridge Four, Rlain included. And, of course, he was loyal to himself. As he always had been. Taking charge of Elhokar's guard would give him the ear of the king of Alethkar, and from there… well. Sarus didn't know what he would do with the influence that could win him, but that was no excuse not to seek it. If a man was trapped in a house of a thousand locked doors, not knowing where they led was no excuse not to reach for any keys he could see.

"Good," Renarin said. "He doesn't like me much, but he's still family."

Sarus smiled slightly. "I understand," he said quietly.

They stood for a time in companionable silence.

"Glys can come out, if he would like," Sarus said quietly. "It's not as though I would tell anyone about him. We're on the same plateau, you and I."

"Glys is… hesitant, around people," Renarin said slowly. "More even than me. I try not to push him."

"I can understand that." Sarus glanced at Renarin's chest where, yes, a red glow was emanating from his pocket. His lips twitched and he looked back out at the night.

"I should be going to bed," Renarin said. "It's been a long night."

"As your bodyguard, it would be my honor to escort you to your father's palace."

Renarin didn't smile, exactly, but he let out a soft, amused breath. "We're actually staying here, tonight," he said. "It… simplifies things, on nights like these."

"That does simplify things," said Sarus neutrally. "I would have expected more propriety from your father and the Queen Mother, however."

Renarin flushed. "They don't—it's not like that, he said. "It's just that none of us want to be riding between the warcamps at night, things being how they are."

"Ah, of course."

Once they reached Renarin's rooms and the prince bade him good night before closing the door, Sarus took a post just outside and leaned his shortspear on his shoulder.

"The Truthwatcher is an odd friend for you," Archive commented quietly, expanding on his shoulder until she was easily visible. "His… social skills are not. You are very different."

"That's part of it," Sarus admitted. "It's pleasant to have someone who listens without judgement. I can tell him the truth about my train of thought, largely without holding anything back. It's refreshing. I was something of a mentor to him when we were younger. He really has grown much better."

"Mm." She was silent for a moment. "Where does his mistspren hide?" she asked. "I did not see where he might have been."

"His breast pocket," Sarus said.

"Ah, then you saw the plants when we were standing still?"

Sarus frowned. "The plants?"

"That is how a mistspren appears on this side, if I recall. A shimmer of light, as if refracted through crystal. When stillness is, they grow plants of light. A mark of their nature as of Cultivation."

"That's not what Glys looks like. He's a red crystal, dripping motes of light upward."

Archive slowly turned to look at him. "That," she said, "is not what a mistspren should look like."

Sarus blinked. "What does that mean?"

"My knowledge is not," said Archive grimly. "But my suspicion is nothing good."

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May 29, 2023

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Threadmarks 37: Truthwatcher

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

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Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

37

Truthwatcher

-x-x-x-

When at last I reached the Celduin, the River Running, on the far side of that dire forest, I collapsed in exhaustion. I consider it a stroke of incredible fortune that I was not killed there while I slept.

-x-x-x-

Renarin was almost exactly the same height as his brother. There was less than an inch difference between them. Nonetheless, Adolin always seemed to loom over him. Whether it was because of Shardplate lending him some extra, or because Sureblood was so much taller than Renarin's own horse—a respectable mare named Melial, but no Ryshadium.

It didn't normally bother Renarin. Adolin was always broader than he was, why shouldn't he be taller too? If anything, it just made sense. But somehow, today, having to crane his neck to see Adolin more than a foot above him on Sureblood irked him.

Several of Sarus' fellow former bridgemen were nearby, though they were on foot. Darkeyes weren't forbidden to ride horses—it wasn't like the reservation of swords for the lighteyed—but very few darkeyes ever had the opportunity to learn to ride. The rare beasts were simply too expensive.

Sarus himself was not here. He had not come on a plateau run since being freed, and Renarin couldn't blame him. He was honestly surprised any of the former bridgemen did, after the horrors they'd been forced to endure. But a few were usually willing to come with him. They never tried to guard Adolin—they refused to cross the final bridge into the battle, even those who came with the army, and Adolin was always among the first into the fray. But they took their duty to guard Renarin seriously.

He didn't resent it. After all, he was now a full Shardbearer, and training with Zahel in the sword. He could slip his guards any time he liked.

All he needed to do was join the battle. Summon his screaming Shardblade and attack. Kill.

"Damnation," Adolin said softly.

Renarin followed his gaze. The battle had already joined ahead of him. Roion and Ruthar's armies were already on the next plateau—and so were the Parshendi. Not only that, but the Parshendi seemed to be flanking the armies, cutting off a large portion of Roion's forces while driving Ruthar's back across their bridges.

"Jakamav is commanding that army," Adolin said. Jakamav was a Shardbearer under Roion, and a friend of Adolin's. Renarin had never much liked him, but Renarin didn't much like most Shardbearers, because most Shardbearers were consummate Alethi warriors, and consummate Alethi warriors tended not to like a man who barely knew which end of a sword to hold. If he could stop having fits long enough to grasp it.

"They're deploying larger forces," Renarin said. "Two armies at once would have overwhelmed whatever forces the Parshendi would commit before the Tower."

"They're mirroring us," Adolin agreed. "We've started sending more men on each assault, so they're doing the same. Our bridges move slower, so they have time to muster more of their forces, I'd guess."

"Then Sadeas must be beating them to the gemheart almost every run he makes," Renarin said quietly.

"Probably. Can't these bridges move any faster?"

Renarin shot a glance at the former bridgemen marching beside his horse, but none of them had looked in their direction at Adolin's comment. "Be careful what you wish for," he told his brother. "I'd rather have slow bridges than bridges like Sadeas."

Adolin sighed. "So would I. Jakamav can hold. He can. He knows what he's doing."

Renarin's heart clenched in sudden shame. Adolin was just worried about his friend, and Renarin was more concerned about whether he would offend their guards. "He does. You'll get there in time."

They were almost to the chasm now. Their strike force today was relatively small—House Kholin wasn't in rotation for plateau runs today, but Father wanted to show a spirit of cooperation, of unity, by sending smaller teams to plateaus near their warcamp to assist. But when the bridges were pulled by chulls, the only benefit to a smaller force was that it took less time to muster. It didn't actually make the run faster. The chulls moved at their own pace, and would not be hurried.

After what felt like hours—but couldn't have been more than five minutes—the chulls came to a halt at the edge of the chasm, and the heavy bridge dropped from its tower, swinging down and across the chasm. Adolin spurred Sureblood and sped into the battle without so much as a word to Renarin.

Renarin sighed as the soldiers around him all charged. In mere moments the only people left on the plateau were him, his guards, and a few surgeons setting up a rapid field hospital. Across the bridge, Adolin threw himself into the Parshendi line, his Blade arcing around him, sending Parshendi falling with burning eyes in the dozens. The rest of the force fell in behind him, delving into the Parshendi line like an arrowhead embedding into flesh.

Renarin dismounted from Melial, his gauntleted hand resting on her neck. He still felt odd in his father's Plate. The slate grey armor just didn't feel right on his body. It fit perfectly, of course—Plate was incredibly accommodating and easy to adjust to any body type—but even so it felt like wearing his father's clothes. He felt like a fraud in the armor, like people would look to it and think Dalinar Kholin, the Blackthorn, was coming to their aid, only to find that it was only weak little Renarin.

Clearmark for your thoughts? Glys said in Renarin's head.

Nothing important, Renarin said. You can come out, you know. Neither Sarus nor Kaladin is here.

I'm not risking it, said Glys.

It's hardly even a risk, Renarin coaxed. Sarus is the only person who's ever seen you when you were hiding, and he's always been strange.

Everybody's strange, if you spend enough time learning their quirks. No, Renarin, I'm staying in here. I'm glad you have this Plate now. How would you like to wear it all around the warcamp?

Why on Roshar would I do that?

Well, it's safer. But more importantly, the avastium alloy blocks those little lights that drip up from me. When I'm in your pocket, I start to get a tiny bit visible if you stand still for a few seconds.

No one's going to notice a few sparkles on my chest, Glys. And if they do, they'll assume it's sand or something.

Unless they know what they're looking for! Glys' voice was sharp, almost frantic. You can never be too careful, Renarin. They're probably hard to see in the daylight, but what about at night? What about indoors? What about during a highstorm?

Glys.

The spren fell silent. This had started happening ever since Sarus had unexpectedly seen Glys that day in the training grounds, a little over a week ago. Renarin hadn't known spren could be paranoid, but Glys seemed to be on the edge of panic all the time, especially whenever they were near any of the former bridgemen. Which, given that they were now Renarin's guards, was nearly all the time.

We can trust Sarus, Renarin reassured the mistspren. We can, Glys. He's a good man.

Even good men can be wrong, Glys said. In fact, it doesn't really make it any less likely. He's a Radiant, Renarin. That means he's dangerous.

I'm a Radiant too.

Yes, but… Glys trailed off.

But what? Renarin prompted.

Glys didn't answer.

Glys— Renarin was forced to turn his focus away from his spren when he heard one of the guards beside him curse softly. He blinked.

The Parshendi were attacking the rear guard. They were trying to take the bridge.

"Think they can hold the bridge?" one of the former bridgemen, Dunny, asked another.

"That rear guard's too small," said the one he'd spoken to, a man named Bisig. "They're going to get overrun. But that bridge is probably too heavy for the Parshendi to knock into the chasm even if they do."

That was true. Renarin had seen the Parshendi knock smaller bridges, like those these men had carried, into the chasms during battles, but never one of the heavy chull-pulled bridges his father employed. It would be all right. Maybe Adolin would have to fight through this smaller force on his way back from the battle if he had to retreat, but he would be able to do that without too much trouble. Adolin was one of the greatest warriors in Alethkar; it would take more than a few dozen Parshendi to stop him.

Suddenly, Renarin thought of the battle on the Tower. He thought of his brother and father, trapped on a plateau with no escape, slowly being whittled down until half the army was gone.

He couldn't let that happen here. Even though his hands were already shaking, even though he could already feel sweat beading on his brow, he couldn't let that happen here.

Before he could second-guess himself, he started running. The guards behind him let out a shout, and he heard them scrambling to catch up with him.

One of the Parshendi saw him approaching, and somehow communicated it to the rest of his squad. Several continued fighting the Kholin rearguard, but a dozen of them turned in his direction, raising their weapons.

Renarin gritted his teeth and thrust his hand out to the side. One heartbeat. Two. Three. Four. He was at the edge of the bridge. His boots thudded against the wood. Five. Six. Seven. Two of the Parshendi charged past the soldiers, weapons held to their sides as if they planned to strike him simultaneously from both sides. Eight. Nine. The first Parshendi swung.

Ten.

The Blade fell into Renarin's hand. He screamed, his voice joining with Glys' and with that of the cursed weapon in his hands as he swung. The Blade sheared through the Parshendi's weapon, and both Parshendi leapt back, their battle-song changing suddenly into a different melody, one sharper and more frantic than the one drifting over the rest of the battle.

Renarin raised his sword, hand shaking, and found that he couldn't move his legs. The screaming in his ears was too loud, the fear in the Parshendi's eyes too bright. There was too much. Too much too much too much—

One of the former bridgemen leapt out in front of him with a spear. Two more followed him into the battle. A fourth put his hand on Renarin's arm. "Come on back, lad," he said. It was an older man, compact of frame, with hair that was just starting to gray. Teft, Renarin noted, as if observing from a long way off. The man's name was Teft.

Renarin staggered back, away from the battle, and dismissed his Shardblade. The sudden silence in his head was thunderous.

His hands shook as he followed Teft back. A minute later, the three men who had leapt into battle to defend him—to defend a full Shardbearer—joined them.

"Here, lad," said Teft soothingly, leading Renarin to a boulder not far from Melial. "Have a seat. Rest up a bit."

Renarin's legs practically buckled as he sat down on the boulder, tugging off his helm and letting it fall to the rock by his feet. His hands shook in his lap, his gauntlets rattling on his fingers. Slowly, painfully slowly, they fell still. "Thank you," he said hoarsely.

"Any time, Brightlord," said Teft. Renarin almost asked if he would continue calling him 'lad.'

His eyes slid shut. I'm a failure.

No other Shardbearer has to deal with their weapon screaming, Renarin, said Glys quietly. It's not your fault.

How do you know?

I know why the weapon is screaming. It's not—

If you tell me it's something I can't know until I've sworn another ideal, I'm going to tell Teft about you right now.

A terrible silence fell between them. Renarin imagined he could feel Glys, frozen against his chest. Was he shaking in terror, just like Renarin had?

I'm sorry, whispered Renarin. I'm just—I'm so tired. I'm an Alethi who doesn't know how to fight. I'm a Shardbearer whose sword screams so loud he can't use it. I'm a Radiant who can't control the one Surge he uses. And I'm a Truthwatcher without any answers. I won't tell anyone about you. I'm sorry. I spoke without thinking. But I can't keep accepting that I just have to be patient before I get any real answers. I can't fight, but I can seek the truth. I will seek the truth.

Suddenly a new voice whispered in his ear. A voice Renarin had heard once before. Soft, sultry, dissonant. These words, she said, are accepted.

Renarin breathed in sharply.

The Second Ideal of the Truthwatchers, whispered Glys. He sounded defeated.

I… Renarin didn't know what to say, but Glys kept going before he had to figure it out.

I'm sorry, Renarin. I'm—what have I been doing? I'm a mistspren. I'm supposed to be rewarding curiosity. Not hiding my secrets from you like a gambler hiding a card in his sleeve.

…Does this mean you'll give me answers?

Glys was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was soft. At once reverent and terrified. Her name is Sja-anat.

Who?

The one who enlightened me. I told you, remember, the night you swore the First Ideal? I'm not a normal mistspren. I'm an enlightened one.

What does that mean?

It means that I am of Odium.

Renarin blinked. And that means…?

Glys made a soft sound, like a cross between a sigh and a pained squeak. Okay. Let's start at the beginning.

Here in the Rosharan system there are three gods. Or there were. Long, long ago, there were only two—Honor and Cultivation. Every spren you've ever seen is a Splinter of their power—of one, the other, or a mixture of both. The only exception is me.

I'm a mistspren. Mistspren are born as a blend of Honor and Cultivation—mostly Cultivation, but we have our share of Honor, too. But I was curious. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to see the world in a different way. I wanted to see what it was like to be something else. So I sought out Sja-anat.

Sja-anat is one of the nine Unmade, incredibly powerful spren of the third god—Odium, the god of hate. He's the being behind the desolations. The creatures you call Voidbringers are his servants. Sja-anat has the unique ability to 'enlighten' spren of Honor and Cultivation. But she's not like the other Unmade. Most of them are mindless, just forces acting on the world. But she's not only sapient, she's kind. She could unmake spren, turning them into monsters, slaves to Odium's will. She doesn't. Instead, she sets us free. She only enlightens those who seek her out, who ask for it, who give their knowing, willing consent. I did, and I was transformed. I don't remember the time before that so well, but I remember everything after much clearer than any spren should, here in the Physical Realm.

But, Renarin, Glys' tone became pleading. The change wasn't just mental. I look different from other mistspren. If any other sapient spren, like Sarus' inkspren or whatever spren follows Kaladin around, catches a glimpse of me? They'll know right away, not only that I'm not a normal mistspren—they'll know I'm enlightened. They know I went to Sja-anat. And even though I know she didn't turn me into a slave to Odium, they don't.

Renarin suddenly understood. That's why you're afraid of them, he said. You're afraid they'll, what, kill you? Kill me?

Yes. Both.

Suddenly, Renarin heard a clatter nearby. He looked up to see Adolin approaching him. The battle had ended while he spoke with Glys. He felt nearly as exhausted as he imagined he would if he had fought it himself. "Hey," said Adolin. "Ready to head back?"

Renarin didn't trust himself to speak, so he just nodded.

Adolin frowned. "What's wrong?"

Renarin couldn't find the words, so he just averted his eyes, looking back down at the ground. He heard Teft pull Adolin aside, probably to explain what had happened. A moment later, Renarin felt his brother's hand on his shoulder.

"It's all right, Renarin," Adolin said.

Renarin shrugged.

Above him, Adolin sighed. "I have to go organize the withdrawal," he said. "I'll be back, all right?"

Renarin nodded, and Adolin patted him once more, then jogged off.

He's kind to you, Glys said. He sounded oddly wistful.

He is, Renarin agreed. Even when I don't deserve it.

You always deserve it. You certainly deserve better than I've been giving you. Do you have any more questions?

Just one. Why does my Shardblade scream?

Glys paused for a moment. I'm not going to make you promise not to tell Sarus this, he said. But I am going to ask you not to, for the same reason I asked you not to tell Elhokar about his Cryptic. It might drive a wedge between him and Archive, make it harder for her to trust him.

Then why aren't you making me promise? Renarin asked. You made me promise not to tell Elhokar.

Because I need to learn to trust you. Even if it's hard. Glys took a deep breath. They're spren, Renarin.

What?

The Shardblades. The Radiants of old didn't have Shardblades and spren. They had spren, and those spren could transform into Shardblades.

Renarin's brow furrowed. But then…

It came together suddenly in his head. He remembered Glys telling him about what would happen if Renarin broke his oaths. He remembered learning about the Radiants from the ardents as a child. About the Recreance. The day when the Knights Radiant had broken their oaths. All of their oaths.

That's what happens to a spren when their Radiant betrays their oath? Renarin asked, feeling his throat close up in sick horror. They turn into… into—

If their Radiant had sworn the Third Ideal, allowing them to summon the spren as a weapon? Yes.

…And if they hadn't sworn the Third Ideal?

Then they're trapped in the Cognitive Realm as a deadeye.

A deadeye?

It's what we call dead spren on the other side. Because their eyes are gone—like they were scratched out. They still walk around, you know—spren can't die, not the way humans and Parshendi can. If they can manifest as a Shardblade they usually just follow around whoever carries the weapon, waiting to be summoned into the Physical Realm to fight. They don't speak. They don't do anything. Just shuffle around, empty husks that used to be family or friends.

Renarin swallowed. That's horrible.

It is.

How could the Radiants do that? Renarin asked. To their partners—their friends?

That, Glys said softly, is one of the biggest questions on Roshar. What could have convinced all of the Radiants—hundreds of them—to kill their spren, all at once, in a single day? What happened on the Day of Recreance? What happened to our friends and family, our bravest, noblest souls? No one knows.

Renarin took a deep breath and stood up. Well, he said. We'll just have to find out, won't we?

Glys was silent for a long moment as Renarin started walking towards Melial. How?

Not sure yet, said Renarin. But I swore to seek the truth. I'll figure something out.

He mounted the horse and cantered off towards where the column was assembling. Melial fell into step beside Sureblood. "It wasn't a fit," Renarin said quietly when Adolin glanced his way.

Adolin smiled sympathetically. On anyone else, the look would be pitying, but Adolin didn't pity Renarin. He might not really understand him, but he valued him. Often more than Renarin deserved. "You don't really know how to fight yet, Renarin," he said. "Give it time. Zahel will have you fighting as well as anyone in Alethkar before too long."

"Right." Renarin snorted. "And you think I can be ready in forty-seven days?" That was how long was left before the countdown in his visions reached zero.

Adolin grimaced. "The numbers on the walls?"

Renarin nodded.

"Try not to think on those too much," Adolin said. "We don't know what they mean. It might be nothing. A practical joke."

"It isn't," said Renarin.

Don't expose us, warned Glys.

Adolin sighed. "The Shardbearer from the Tower was on the field today," he said.

That successfully changed the subject. "You fought him?"

"No, actually," Adolin said. "She—I think it might be a woman, it's hard to tell—cut open the chrysalis and was ready to run away. But when she saw me she asked to parley with Father."

"Parley? The Parshendi haven't been willing to talk since they assassinated Uncle Gavilar."

"Apparently, that was long ago, and times change."

Renarin frowned in confusion. "We're missing something."

"Probably," Adolin agreed. "But what better way to find out the truth than to show up to that parley? They'll send a messenger to set up a time."

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Threadmarks 38: The Only Prize

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

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Jun 12, 2023

#1,083

Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

38

The Only Prize

-x-x-x-

The Dwarves of Erebor, the Men of Dale, and the Avari of the reclaimed Greenwood were all hunting me, though I was at least safe from Gondor this far from their hunting bands. But somehow none happened upon me, though I slept for three days uninterrupted.

-x-x-x-

"Husband?"

Torol looked away from his window overlooking the Sadeas warcamp and gave Ialai a smile. "Wife."

She didn't smile back. Her expression was grim. "Elhokar has just relieved two-thirds of the King's Guard from their commissions."

He blinked at her. "That… Well, I suppose the boy's paranoia is getting worse. A good thing for us."

"No. Not a good thing. Torol, they have been replaced by your bridgemen."

Torol felt his face freeze. His heart suddenly thundered in his ears. "You cannot be serious," he said softly.

"As serious as an execution, love." Ialai flung herself down onto the couch nearest the door, a plush thing upholstered in an Azish style, whose green fabric perfectly matched the rest of the opulent sitting room. "And you can surely guess just which bridgeman has apparently been placed in command of the rotation."

"No."

"Yes. The man who killed our daughter has just been promoted to squadleader of the King's Guard."

Torol sank slowly into a seat across from his wife. "This might be a good thing," he said slowly. "If it comes to assassination, we may be able to eliminate both Elhokar and the boy with one action. And make the death of the darkeyes look like nothing more than collateral damage."

"Yes, we could do that," Ialai said stiffly. "But it was you who argued that assassination was an inelegant approach to take. If we assassinate Elhokar, it will be almost impossible to avoid suspicion falling on ourselves. And if it does—or worse, if our involvement is proven—we will give Dalinar the perfect grounds to rally the entire rest of the kingdom against us. You are a great warrior, Torol, especially now you have that Blade—but even you can't stand against nine other highprincedoms."

"It wouldn't be nine other highprincedoms. I'm sure we could maintain alliances with one or two others."

"How strong would those alliances be? No one wants to be on the losing side of a civil war, Torol. How much do you think we'll be able to trust anyone who claims to stand with us?"

Torol didn't have an answer for that. He turned back to the window, teeth gritted.

"And if the boy guards Elhokar correctly, it will only grow harder to destroy him," said Ialai darkly. "You remember him. You remember just how good he was at ingratiating himself with those above his station. Ardents. Officers. Even our daughter."

"I remember."

"We cannot allow him to gain such a foothold with the king. He will only grow more trusted, and once Elhokar can afford to dedicate more peacetime resources to his own safety, that will make him practically untouchable."

"It won't be that dire," said Torol, forcing the words out through his clenched teeth. "No matter how intricate a web of manipulation the boy weaves around Elhokar, the fact remains that he is a darkeyes, one who has been a slave—sas nahn. Even if he's free now, that blemish on his rank will not go away. Elhokar was raised by Gavilar and grew up in the Kholinar court. He understands the importance of nahn and dahn. He will never completely trust the boy."

"Tailiah was raised by us," Ialai said. "By me. Yet she trusted him."

"Yes." Torol let the self-recrimination, the hate, surge upward in him. He remembered the night he had been woken by the cries of a babe beneath his windowsill. He remembered deciding to allow him to stay. How different might the world have been if that boy had not been there that night? Or if he had held true to rank and sent him away? "And that was my fault. I allowed him to stay. I allowed Tailiah to interact with him. She was a child when they first became playmates—she could not be blamed for not understanding. I should never have allowed it."

Silence fell in the sitting room for a while. "I could have prevented it, too," Ialai said finally. "I should have. She was my daughter. You trusted me to raise her into a proper brightlady of Alethkar. I should have argued against letting a darkeyed boy have influence in her life."

"We both should have known better."

"Yes. We should have." She stood and crossed the room, stepping up beside him and threading her fingers with his. "What shall we do?"

"Can we afford to have the boy killed? If we're exposed, if we are even suspected, we'll be the laughingstock of the highprinces. Wasting the resources for an assassination on a darkeyed boy? One who guarded the king? We'll look ridiculous."

"There might be a middle ground," Ialai said slowly. "What if we made it look like a threat against the king? If we can acquire the guard rotation, we can send assassins after the king during the boy's shift—with instructions, not to kill Elhokar, but to slaughter all of his guards to send a message."

Torol raised an eyebrow. For a moment he was silent, trying to guess how Elhokar might react to something like that. His paranoia would blossom into true obsession, of course. In the fullness of time he might go truly mad. Jumping at shadows and thrusting his blade into every corner, expecting betrayal from everyone around him. In the short term, that might well be to Torol's benefit. If Elhokar would be driven to distrust everyone, including Dalinar, that might be all Torol needed.

But it was also possible that Elhokar would come to rely even more heavily on Dalinar, if he was convinced that Torol was responsible for the assassins. And if that happened, it might be cause enough for Elhokar, even in the middle of the war with the Parshendi, to order the other princedoms into open war against him. That would both fracture the kingdom and probably get both Torol and Ialai killed and replaced with some lesser house.

"No," said Torol quietly. "It could work in our favor. But I don't think it will. The risk is too great."

"Then what?"

Before Torol could answer, the horns ran out to call him to a plateau run. Reluctantly, he tugged his fingers from Ialai's grip. "I don't know," he admitted. "We'll continue this discussion when I return, all right?"

"I'll be here," said Ialai quietly. "Thinking. Be careful, husband."

"I am a full Shardbearer," said Torol as he left the room. "I don't need caution."

-x-x-x-

Torol had not had a Shardblade long, but as he swept it through four Parshendi in a single swing, he felt as though he had been born to it. Their eyes burned out like embers in their heads, and they fell dead at his feet.

And then it was over. He looked around, the Thrill humming in his veins like a drumbeat in his ears, but there were no more of the creatures anywhere near him. The last stragglers were fleeing the plateau, leaping over the chasm to escape his army. As he had many times before, he had to fight down the momentary temptation to call his bridgemen to give chase. They're too fast, he told himself, the Thrill baying at his heels like an excitable hound. We wouldn't be able to catch up, and all we would achieve would be leaving this gemheart for Hatham and Roion to retrieve, profiting off our labor.

The Thrill settled. It remained curled about him, but it stopped trying to push him to attack, to hunt, to kill. It yielded to him.

He let out a satisfied sigh, resting Oathbringer against his shoulder. He dug his heels into his horse, and Nomar bore him towards the chasmfiend chrysalis. They had beaten the Parshendi to the plateau today, and had finished cutting open the chrysalis just before the enemy arrived. Torol saw the gemheart glittering inside, exposed in the gash his men had cut into the chitin.

He slid from his horse's back, bent down, and reached in with both hands. His gauntleted fingers closed against the stone nearly the size of his head. He pulled, and the Shardplate enhanced his strength. With a sickly, wet sound, like a limb being ripped from its socket, the gemheart tore free of the flesh. He held it aloft, dripping with orange blood. A cheer rose up from the army around him, and Torol's eyes slid shut, gemheart in one hand, Oathbringer in the other, and reveled in it.

Then the Thrill leached away, as it always did, and he was left empty. He sighed and dismissed Oathbringer. As it dissipated into mist, he opened his eyes to see Meridas Amaram approaching him, honor guard flanking him. They fanned out to join his own soldiers, moving with an efficiency that Torol couldn't help but envy. His own men were simply not as well-trained, and it was a source of constant annoyance.

Amaram pulled off the helm of his green and gold Shardplate. His square chin was set in displeasure. "You realize your maneuver here failed today?"

"How so?" Torol asked, lips twisting in amusement.

Amaram pointed at where Hatham and Roion's banners were approaching from the plateaus to the west. Today, according to Dalinar and Elhokar's new rotating schedule, those two were supposed to be on duty to retrieve gemhearts. "We needed to arrive, retrieve the gemheart, and leave before the others arrived. Then you could have claimed you didn't realize today wasn't your rotation. The arrival of the other armies removes that deniability."

"You assume I care about deniability." Torol passed Amaram, mounting his horse again. Amaram followed suit.

"I'm duty-bound to follow you into battle, Brightlord, but don't mistake me. I don't approve of this. We should be trying to bridge the differences between us and the Kholins, not widening them."

"Don't give me that," said Torol, rolling his eyes and nudging Nomar towards the western edge of the plateau. "Dalinar may buy your noble act, but like recognizes like."

Amaram sighed. "Yes. So understand that, when I tell you that Alethkar needs to be united to face what is coming, I am not merely playing at nobility. I'm serious."

"So am I. Alethkar will be united." Torol reined in his horse at the edge of the plateau, watching the other armies approach. "By blood and steel."

"Highprince Sadeas!" called a soldier behind him. "Shall we make ready to attack?"

"No," Torol answered. "Make ready to return to the warcamp."

"Do you ever worry?" Amaram asked quietly, voice barely audible over the orders being barked behind them. "Wonder? About the course you've chosen, the actions it demands?"

"No," Torol lied. Something moved in the corner of his vision, but when he glanced to the side there was nothing there. "No," he said again, turning back to Amaram, "I've come to accept the world as it is. Brutal, callous, cruel, pitiless. Ours is a hard world, and we must be hard men to master it. You know this."

"I do," Amaram acknowledged, holding Torol's gaze. "But you seem to revel in it. And you didn't, once."

"No," Torol agreed. "I didn't. I have received an education." Then he turned and spurred his horse away and across one of the bridges. "Latharil!" he called, spotting his general among a knot of officers. "Order the men to turn towards our camp, then come with me!"

Latharil saluted and shouted orders, then spurred his horse to join Torol. Amaram joined the army as it began marching back across the plateaus while Torol and Latharil turned towards the approaching armies. They came to a halt coming to a halt on the edge of the chasm just as Hatham and Roion began crossing onto the plateau on its other side.

Hatham rode ahead of his army, his massive Ryshadium making Torol burn with envy. "Sadeas?" he called. "What is this? What have you done?"

Torol hefted the gemheart and threw it across the chasm. With his strength enhanced by his Plate, it sailed across easily and bounced slightly on the rock at the Ryshadium's hooves. "I was bored," he called back. "I thought I'd save you the trouble. Enjoy your prize."

Then he turned and cantered back towards his army. Latharil kept pace with him. "Shall I tell the men that we won't be having a celebration when we return?" he asked quietly.

"Certainly not," Torol said. "They won a victory today, and they deserve to drink and feast as well as ever. Gemhearts are not the only prize to be won on these Plains, Latharil."

"Yes, Brightlord."

Torol glanced up at the sun, still rising towards its zenith. If the army made haste, he might be able to arrive at the warcamps in time to change and reach the dueling grounds for Adolin Kholin's next duel. Torol had heard the boy had embarrassed himself at the last one, and didn't want to miss it if it happened again.

-x-x-x-

Torol slipped into his box at the arena beside Ialai, who was already there. "I wasn't sure you'd be here," he murmured into her ear.

She smiled at him. "Of course. After Adolin's performance last time? I couldn't miss it."

"I suppose not," Torol said, resting his hand momentarily on hers beneath the long sleeve of her havah. "The duel hasn't started yet?"

"Not quite. Both contestants have arrived and their armorers have gone to prepare them." She shot him a shrewd look. "I heard you gave away the gemheart you won today."

Torol grinned. "Threw it right at Hatham's feet."

"As if you didn't care about it at all," said Ialai appreciatively. "Very well done. That will undermine Dalinar's claim that we oppose him out of base greed."

"And it will demonstrate that my faster bridge crews continue to be superior to Dalinar's." Torol scanned the crowd. "This duel shouldn't be happening," he said. "You've been speaking to the Shardbearers' wives?"

"Yes," Ialai said. "But duelists aren't a particularly dependable lot. Every single one of them wants to be the man who brought down Adolin Kholin. Hotheaded and proud, all of them."

"Dalinar's plan cannot be allowed to work," Torol said. While Dalinar's goal—to win control over enough of Alethkar's shards to be able to bring the other highprinces in line—was obvious to anyone paying attention, actually acknowledging it was politically fraught. If Torol made it clear that his Shardbearers were not to accept Adolin's challenges because he was afraid they would lose, he all but guaranteed that they would disobey. And then they would lose, and Dalinar would win.

"I know," Ialai said. "It won't."

Before she could continue, Adolin stepped out onto the sand. A moment later, his opponent, a Shardbearer under Ruthar named Eranniv, left his own arming room. Eranniv's Shardplate was, in Torol's opinion, one of the ugliest suits in Alethkar—polished in its natural slate-grey color, like Dalinar's, except that he'd painted the breastplate jet-black.

The judge called for the duel to begin, and Adolin summoned his Blade. Eranniv only bore armor, so his Blade was one of the king's. As such, he had walked out with it, since it was not bound to him and could not be summoned and dismissed at will.

As they circled one another, Ialai continued quietly. "This is just culling the most foolish Shardbearers," she said. "Those with enough sense to see what Dalinar and Adolin are doing will not be so easily persuaded."

"Unless enough stupid Shardbearers lose to Adolin to make it seem cowardly to refuse to do so. It's not the Alethi way to refuse to fight, Ialai."

"I'll continue to investigate other ways to prevent these duels. Oh, speaking of investigations—I found out the source of that disturbance in Elhokar's quarters two weeks ago. It appears the event coincided perfectly with the replacement of his previous guards."

"Oh? Don't leave me in suspense."

"An assassination attempt," Ialai said. "A crude one—someone sabotaged his balcony in the hopes that he would fall to the rocks below. It apparently came near to working."

Torol found, almost to his surprise, that he did still pity Elhokar a little. Hearing that he had nearly died to assassins gave him no joy. True, he knew the boy would have to die eventually—his weakness was driving Alethkar to crumble—but the thought wasn't a happy one. "Not so crude, if it nearly worked."

"Nearly is a very large distinction in an assassination, husband."

"True. Who ordered it, do you think?"

"Hard to say," Ialai said. "I'm sure it wasn't Ruthar or Aladar. They're both yours."

"And Roion's too much of a coward. Thanadal?"

"That's my best guess right now. But I'll keep looking."

A thought suddenly occurred to Torol. "You don't think the boy could have done it himself?" he asked. "If he was promoted to leader of the King's Guard that night…"

Ialai suddenly frowned. "I hadn't considered that. And I should have."

"See if you can find out where my former bridgemen were that night. If he had an opportunity, and thought he could manipulate Elhokar into promoting him, he would certainly take it." Torol's face twisted. "It wouldn't be the first time he was careless with the life of one of his betters."

Ialai made a tiny, pained noise. "No," she whispered. "It wouldn't be."

Torol looked over at Elhokar's box. His eyes found a head of hair going prematurely white. The boy's dark grey eyes were fixed on the duel below. Torol gritted his teeth against the hate and pain, forcing himself to look back down at the action.

"My ability to investigate has been hamstrung by Dalinar's being named Highprince of War," Ialai said. "Every time we openly engage in any sort of espionage, especially when we invoke your authority, it only cements Dalinar's authority over the war."

"It was a masterstroke," Torol acknowledged. "I wonder which of them came up with the idea?"

"We know Dalinar initially suggested it," Ialai said. "He may not have even realized it would interfere with us when he insisted after the Tower. He may have simply been tired of letting Elhokar make poor decisions."

That, Torol could believe. "Do you have a plan for how to work around him?"

"The beginnings of one. Dalinar is overreaching. His soldiers are patrolling between the warcamps and in the outer markets. Shouldn't those sorts of scouts and defenses be your duty?"

"The markets, at least, are the purview of the Highprince of Commerce, which Elhokar hasn't appointed." Torol frowned. "But, as Highprince of Information, I should have been informed the moment an attempt was made on the king's life. I wasn't. There's a weakness there to exploit."

"Dalinar's ambition?"

"It's not ambition, not exactly. Dalinar doesn't necessarily desire more power. He simply has difficulty letting other people have it. He never trusts anyone to do their job. He didn't come to me with a problem that was under my purview even as he claims that all parts of the kingdom should work together. We know why he didn't, of course, but to the rest of the kingdom? That is the weakness." Torol looked Ialai in the eye. "If we simply sow rumors that Dalinar is ambitious and power-hungry, we will only win over those who already fear his authority and are inclined to resist him anyway. But if we frame him as self-contradictory? Hypocritical? Unreliable? That, Ialai, is how we win over his allies."

"Ah," Ialai said softly. "I'll begin spreading rumors. You, meanwhile, should resign your post in protest."

"Not just yet," said Torol, smiling. "I want to time it right. Ideally, I'd like to resign just before Dalinar feels he has to allow me to do my job. It will put him further off balance."

"Elegant," Ialai said. She frowned down at the battle below. "This is taking too long. Why isn't Eranniv finishing him? Adolin's nearly lost his second piece of armor."

Sadeas frowned at the duel. Adolin boasted so often about his skill. Torol had at least expected a better showing than this. The boy's gauntlet had already shattered. Adolin should be better than this.

…Adolin was better than this. Torol had seen him on the battlefield. He was faking.

Torol grinned. "That's almost clever."

"What is?"

"Adolin's fighting beneath his capacity," Torol said. "Trying to bait other prideful duelists into bouts of their own. He's trying to make this duel look as close as he can."

As if on cue, Adolin made a final 'lucky' blow, shattering Eranniv's helm. The crowd cheered, and Eranniv stormed off, shouting about Adolin's luck. His armor would be removed in the preparatory room and presented to Adolin.

"Another victory for Adolin," said Ialai. "I'll make sure this doesn't happen again."

"No," said Torol slowly. "No… Hotheaded and proud, you said. Adolin, like many other young duelists, is both of those things. We can use that."

"How?"

"I'm not certain yet," Torol said softly, watching the boy leave the arena. "But stop discouraging people from fighting him. Don't encourage them, either. I want to see how things develop."

"Don't observe for too long," Ialai warned. "We can't let House Kholin win too many Shards or they will become unstoppable."

"I know, love."

She glanced around. "Any thoughts on what we discussed before the battle?" she asked.

"Much the same," said Torol unhappily. "Especially until we know the details of that assassination attempt. We need to bide our time."

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LithosMaitreya

Jun 12, 2023

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Threadmarks 39: Love and Be Loved

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

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Jun 19, 2023

#1,101

Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

39

Love and Be Loved

-x-x-x-

Then I turned south and east, following the Celduin towards the Sea of Rhûn and the Ered Rhûn upon its western shores. And there I, like the rest of my surviving kin, crept into the dark and did my best to survive.

-x-x-x-

Eight Years Ago

"You take to this well, boy."

Sarus snapped his spear back to his side and spun, giving Sergeant Palas a crisp salute. "Thank you, sir."

The stern man gave him a short nod before moving on to the other drilling recruits.

Sarus had only started training with the cadets a few brief months ago, despite having selected his Calling fully two years ago now. Despite the sanctity of the age, ten was deemed too young to begin training with live weapons among grown men. Twelve was the convention, and so, at twelve, Sarus had joined the guard of Castle Sadaras as a new cadet.

He returned to his drilling, driving his spear forward again and again, carefully noting which muscles began to burn as he pushed them to move the weapon faster, strike with more force. When he noticed that one of the muscles he was using extensively was stopping the force of the blow so that the spear didn't fly out of his hands, he ended the drill.

"Cadet Sarus!" Sergeant Palas approached him. His face was set into the same hard, stern expression he always wore while overseeing the recruits, but Sarus could tell the man liked him. He was a simple person—all he wanted in a trainee was someone who took the training seriously, who understood that the glory of battle would never come without preparation. And that was something Sarus didn't even have to fake.

"Sir." Sarus snapped a salute to the man.

"Why have you stopped drilling?"

"I believe I am overtraining the technique in the air, sir. I think I'm building a bad habit of holding back at the end of the strike because there's no target to stop the motion. I humbly request a target, sir."

Palas' eyes narrowed. "Identify for me the muscle you believe you're overusing."

Sarus had been drilling a sidelong strike from overhead, where he stood almost sideways relative to his target and thrust the spear over his head with both hands. Most of the forward force came from his rear arm, but it was the front arm that was being used to slow the weapon at the end. He pointed at the muscle on the underside of the upper arm of his left hand. "This one, sir."

Sergeant Palas watched him silently for a moment. Sarus was thankful that there weren't many recruits in the field today. There was no active draft, so the only people training here, other than Sarus, were people who genuinely wanted to be soldiers. While some of the nearest shot him sour looks for questioning the sergeant, most were focused on their own drilling.

It didn't matter. He wasn't trying to win their approval.

"Very well," said Palas finally. "Cadets, cease drilling!"

It took some of the recruits a few moments to heed the command, but soon they all stood at attention.

"We'll go to the range," Palas ordered. "The archers shouldn't be training there now. We can use their targets, and I'll get the quartermaster to have targets made for our use." He shot Sarus a look. "Will that satisfy you, boy?"

Sarus didn't let his expression shift. Palas wasn't actually upset with him. He just felt it was necessary not to show favoritism, and so when he gave Sarus what he wanted, he had to make it seem backhanded and reluctant. Sarus was fine with that. After all, Palas acting unreasonable implicitly meant he was favoring Sarus, underneath the bluster. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Palas nodded sharply and turned on his heel. "Cadets, fall in!"

-x-x-x-

"Welcome home, Sarus," his mother called from their small, private kitchen as he stepped inside their sitting room.

He breathed in through his nose as he closed the door behind him, relishing the peppery scent. "Is that dinner for us?"

"There was some chicken in the pantry that was starting to turn," she said. "I rescued it for our use. I hope you won't report me to the highprince, brave guardsman."

"I will accept a second helping as bribery," Sarus joked, hanging his training spear upon the small rack beside the door. He passed through the sitting room into the kitchen, watching his mother bustling over a small pot bubbling with broth.

"I certainly hope you'll have a second helping," she said, shooting him a look. "This chicken won't last forever. I'm even going to have a helping, even though I'm spicing it for you."

"How scandalous."

"How practical. Also, selfish. It's not every day I get to eat chicken fit for a highprince, even if it is a bit too old to be served to them now. Go, sit down. It'll be ready in a few minutes."

He obeyed, returning to the sitting room and pulling a chair up to the small table. His mother joined him with the chicken and a small sweetbread before long. "How was training?" she asked.

"Fine," he said. "Sergeant Palas likes me. Despite his best efforts."

"Of course he does. I'm sure you didn't give him a choice."

He grinned. "You know me so well. Any news from the kitchens?"

"Brightness Ialai is apparently squabbling with the wife of one of the vintners whose wine we stock in the pantry." His mother rolled her eyes. "We've been instructed to source an alternative sapphire. Not too much, just enough for Her Ladyship's next few parties."

"Just enough to send a message?"

"Exactly."

A brief quiet fell between them as Sarus' mother served the both of them. A larger helping of chicken for him, and a larger helping of sweetbread for her. He cut himself a bite immediately. She hesitated, watching him. "Are you certain you're ready to enter the Guard?" she finally asked.

He paused between bites. "Yes."

"House Sadeas has enemies, Sarus," she said softly.

"Of course it does. They wouldn't need a Guard, otherwise."

"Not just enemies in general. There's rumor of rebellion stirring in the west part of the highprincedom."

He'd heard as much over the past several months. "Good. It's an opportunity for achievement."

She grimaced, and he understood. "You're twelve, Sarus! You're too young to go out and fight armies. You could die."

"Or I could achieve glory." He reached across the table and took her hand. "Mother, the things I want can't be achieved without risk. And I want them. I can't settle as an ordinary servant to the highprince and his family. I admire that you can, but it would drive me mad. I don't intend to get myself killed as a boy on a battlefield for men. But I do intend to ensure that, when I become a man, I am ready to step onto that battlefield."

She met his eyes. "Promise me you'll be careful."

"I promise."

-x-x-x-

Sarus had almost managed to drift off to sleep when he heard the shutters of his window being pushed aside. He opened his eyes and sat up as Tailiah slipped inside, dark cloak covering her white nightgown.

"Hey, Sarus," she said, closing the window behind her and shooting him a smile.

"Tailiah. You don't usually come this late." It was already well past second moonrise. "Is something wrong?"

She hesitated a moment before shaking her head. "No, nothing's wrong. Mother just held me up."

"Held you up past second moonrise? I'd have thought she'd want you in bed by now."

Tailiah grimaced. "…Adolin is coming to visit again."

"Ah." Sarus was sympathetic to Tailiah's situation, but he had to admit he didn't understand it. "Do you want me to try and run interference for you?" Sarus asked. "I can't promise anything, but if Renarin comes with him I might be able to—"

"No," said Tailiah with a quick shake of her head. "No, I can handle Adolin. It's not like I hate his company or anything. It's just the… implications that bother me."

Sarus nodded slowly. "I understand."

"Do you?" Her face looked conflicted in the dim spherelight. "I've thought about talking to him about this, you know."

Sarus blinked and caught himself drawing back slightly. "Really? Why?"

"Because I really think he might try to help, in his way," said Tailiah. "He's kind, Sarus. Kinder than I am. But he's also a bit of an idiot. Even if he tried to help, he might make things worse. But that doesn't mean I want to—to lead him on like this. He can do so much better than me. He and I have been informally courting for years now. In that time he could have had tens of causals and opportunities if his family hadn't been wasting his time with me."

"Tailiah, you're the one trapped with him. Not the other way around."

"I think it might be both," she said quietly. "Adolin's just too sweet and stupid to see the ropes." She looked up at him for a long moment. "I'm starting to think everyone's trapped," she whispered. "All of us, holding one another down, trying to force each other into roles we don't want and didn't ask for. Just like I'm doing with you."

Sarus frowned at her. "Tailiah, I don't mind doing this. If I can get Shards of my own, I'll be happy to use them to get you out of your situation with Adolin."

"I don't understand how that can be true," she admitted. "You're talking about being trapped in a loveless marriage, Sarus. How can you not mind that?"

This was what Sarus didn't understand. He understood the desire to be loved. It was one of the most fundamental desires people had. It wasn't something he often had occasion to use, but when those opportunities presented themselves there was seldom a more reliable way to get what he wanted.

But the desire, not to be loved, but to love? To shackle oneself down in such a fundamental way, tying one's very soul to that of another person? To willingly open oneself to the manipulations of anyone who had access to the object of one's affection? That, Sarus could not understand. He could see it, certainly, could understand that it existed and make educated guesses and plans based on that information. But he couldn't imagine ever feeling like that himself.

Which was, of course, why he was willing to be Tailiah's way out of her inevitable betrothal to Adolin. What did it matter to him if he were in a sham of a marriage, where his wife mostly wanted to avoid dealing with other men? It just meant he was responsible for less in the partnership.

"I think any marriage I'm in will eventually degrade to a loveless one, Tailiah," he said. "At least this way you and I both know what we're getting into."

Suddenly her arms were around him. "No," she said firmly. "No, Sarus. You're not destined to be trapped in a loveless marriage. You deserve better. You—"

Sarus put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. "It's not that I'm worried about being loved, Tailiah," he said. "I'm confident that with some effort and practice I could get a woman of suitable station quite infatuated. But eventually, she would be bound to realize that I didn't love her back."

"But what if you did?"

"I don't want to. I don't even understand why you do."

She blinked at him. She didn't seem to have any idea what to say for a long moment. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

Bitterness shot through him like poison from a blade. "I don't need your pity," he snapped. "I am what I am. Isn't that exactly what you want for yourself?"

She turned her face away. "You're right. I'm—I shouldn't…" She trailed off, wrapping her arms around herself.

The bile slid from Sarus' tongue, leaving only the taste of ashes. "I don't need a marriage bed or a devoted wife, Tailiah. All I want is respect and the power to choose my own fate. You used to want the same things."

"I still do."

"Well, I might be able to help you get the freedom you want without compromising mine. So let me."

"Okay. Thank you, Sarus."

"You're welcome."

She shot him a brittle smile. "I should get back before Mother checks in on me," she said. "Good night."

"Sleep well, Tailiah."

She slipped from his room, shuttering the windows behind her. He stood in the gloom for several minutes, his bed empty beside him, thinking of the girl who had been his best friend for their entire lives, and wondering when they had grown so far apart.

He didn't want what she wanted. And he wanted the best for her. He wanted her to have the things she wanted to have, and he had no desire to have them for himself.

So why did he feel envious?

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LithosMaitreya

Jun 19, 2023

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Threadmarks 40: The Assassin in White

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

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Jun 26, 2023

#1,105

Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

40

The Assassin in White

-x-x-x-

Over the next three millennia, my kind were hunted near to extinction. I, of course, knew little of this. For I had no contact with the outside world. I lived inside those caves, emerging only once every few decades when I could not find subterranean food to eat. No hoard had this dragon, save his own life.

-x-x-x-

Sarus felt the moment the highstorm struck the palace. It vibrated through the walls, whistled against the stone. A shuttered window began to rattle. In a chair by the door, Kaladin yawned, his head nodding onto his chest. The man had barely slept in weeks, it was true, but sleeping during the first gale of a highstorm was still impressive.

King Elhokar and Prince Adolin sat in two plush armchairs against one of the room's internal walls. There was a low table between them, on which rested two goblets of orange wine. Between sips, they chatted—Sarus would never risk accusing two of the most powerful men in Alethkar of gossiping—about their family and friends back in Kholinar.

They were in the king's quarters. Elhokar had taken to weathering highstorms here with his cousins, while the highprince and queen mother locked themselves in a side room.

Other than the Kholins, there were seven guards on duty. Only Sarus and Kaladin were welcome inside the room with the lighteyes. For Kaladin, it was because Dalinar trusted him. For Sarus, it was because he was in charge of Elhokar's personal guard and the king wanted to emulate his uncle. The other five stood guard outside.

Renarin sat in a corner, staring at nothing in particular. Sarus had gathered that he could speak to Glys without making any noise; he wondered if they were holding a conversation now.

He hadn't yet learned anything more about Glys since Archive had realized he wasn't an ordinary mistspren. Sarus didn't know how to probe Renarin about it. As difficult as the younger man found it to express his feelings and ideas, and as nervous as he often was about misinterpreting those of others, he wasn't easy to fool into letting something slip. He was constantly second-guessing any conversation he was a part of, which made it difficult to lull him into a sense of ease. Besides, Sarus simply hadn't had many opportunities to speak to him alone.

He wasn't sure what to make of it. Archive's memory was flawed, but she was confident she would be able to identify any of the ten types of spren who could bestow Surges and create Knights Radiant, and Sarus' description of Glys didn't match any of them. What that meant, neither of them were sure.

The king had received a letter from his wife, it seemed. Sarus noticed that there was no blossoming warmth in his face as he spoke of Queen Aesudan, unlike when his son, Gavinor, came up. A political marriage, most likely. Sarus wondered what Gavilar had won by selling out his son's future.

"Apparently there have been issues with the merchants making their way into Kholinar from the eastern farmlands," Elhokar was saying. "But Aesudan assures me that enough stores remain to last through the Weeping, if necessary."

"We don't want the capitol to have to dip into its siege stores, though," Adolin said, swirling his goblet thoughtfully. "If things go really poorly with Sadeas, we may need those."

"You really think it will come to war?" Sarus knew the sound of a man pretending to be nonchalant.

"I think Sadeas won't go down without some kind of fight," Adolin answered. "Not sure what sort of fight, but he's not going to fall in line without a struggle."

Elhokar looked pensive. After a particularly loud gust, he shot a glare at the leaky shutters. "I must remember to have that repaired later," he said. "It's been doing that every storm for weeks."

For a moment, Sarus entertained the idea that there might be some significance to leaking shutters. Someone had tried to assassinate the king by cutting the railing of his balcony, after all.

(Someone, as if Sarus didn't know exactly who had let a Shardbearer into Elhokar's study. He hadn't confronted Moash because he wasn't yet sure how the connections between the men of Bridge Four would play out once the man's duplicity was exposed. He needed to take control of the situation, or at least take stock, before he shot an arrow into the middle of it.)

Was it possible that a similar attempt might have been made using the windows? Perhaps someone had intended to expose Elhokar to the highstorm? But, no, he would have simply left the room once the storm broke in. If the wind somehow carried a boulder to this window, a hundred feet off the ground, the shutters wouldn't have stopped it anyway.

No, this was just a perfectly mundane case of poor maintenance.

"Did you tell Father about the Parshendi Shardbearer?" Renarin suddenly asked, looking over at Adolin across the room.

"Oh, yes, I did."

"What's this about a Parshendi Shardbearer?" Elhokar asked, looking between the brothers.

"Has Father not reported yet? I encountered the one he and I saw at the Tower," Adolin explained. "I suspect she's the last they have."

"She?" Elhokar's eyebrow rose.

"I think so," Adolin said. "It's hard to tell, with them."

"Hm." Elhokar sounded doubtful.

"Anyway," Adolin looked back at Renarin. "Father's agreed to meet with them. We're going to keep an eye out for their messenger. No sign of one yet."

Well. That was interesting. The Listeners had sent a Shardbearer to parley with Highprince Dalinar? There were implications there. Not least of which was that, to the Parshendi, the man with whom they needed to negotiate was not the king.

"They asked to speak with Uncle Dalinar?" Elhokar asked, and Sarus guessed by his tone that he hadn't missed the implication.

Adolin nodded. "No idea why, or why now. We'll update you the moment we do."

"Good." Elhokar stood up, straightening his clothes. He wore a much more ornate version of the Kholin blue uniform favored by Dalinar and his sons, embroidered with the Kholin glyphpair over his breast and decorated with buttons of solid gold. "I'll be back shortly," he said. "The privy calls." He crossed to a side door and entered, shutting and locking it behind him.

"You're sure meeting with them is a good idea?" Renarin asked.

"It's not my decision," Adolin pointed out. "It's Father's."

"And do you think he's making the right decision?"

Adolin hesitated. "I think so," he said. "Nothing may come of it, of course. They may even try to betray us again, just like they did five years ago. But we won't be taken by surprise again. I'm glad Father agreed. It's a chance to end this war without spending another five years out here trying to reach the center of the Plains one plateau at a time."

"And the Shardbearer," Renarin said. "You really think she was a woman?"

As he spoke, Sarus saw Kaladin jerk suddenly to wakefulness by the door. Sarus shot him a look. Kaladin's eyes were wide, and his face was pale. He looked around the room frantically.

"They usually have beards. She didn't, and I didn't see any stubble either. Her voice might have been feminine? It was deeper than most women I've known, but maybe that's normal for the Parshendi. They're odd." Adolin glanced over at Kaladin, his lips turning upward in amusement. "Sleeping on the job, soldier?"

Kaladin didn't answer, just looked at Sarus. "Where…"

"His Majesty is in the privy," said Sarus smoothly. "Is something wrong?"

He remembered Kaladin's strange dream in the bridgeman barracks, a few weeks before they had been freed. He had seen cities, depicted as they really were, though he had never even heard them described before. There had been a highstorm that night, too. Had he just suffered another, similar vision?

"You can sleep during a highstorm," Adolin observed. "Impressive. You can also drool during a highstorm, which is less so."

Kaladin ignored the prince. Sarus realized he was breathing quickly, almost panicking. He crossed to the window and, without hesitating for even a moment, flung it open.

Adolin shouted in alarm. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Kaladin," Sarus said quietly, stepping up beside his captain. "You saw something?"

At that moment, Syl darted inside, flying out of the storm like a falling star. She tended to stay outside during highstorms. "Something's wrong, Kaladin," she said. She sounded… afraid.

The last time Sarus had heard that tone in her voice, Kaladin had been dying in the bridgemen barracks.

"I know," Kaladin said hoarsely.

"He's coming," Syl moaned.

"Who?"

"Odium," Syl whispered. "Not in person, not yet. But he's watching. I can feel it."

"Damnation," whispered Archive on Sarus' shoulder, too quiet for the Kholins to hear.

For a long moment, Sarus and Kaladin stood their ground, the rain pelting their faces. Then Kaladin flung the shutters closed and turned back to the princes. "Get the king," he ordered. "We're leaving. Now."

"What do you mean, we're leaving?" Adolin demanded.

Renarin stood up. He caught Sarus' gaze for a long moment. Whatever he saw there, it was enough to make him touch his brother's arm. "Listen to them," he said.

"Renarin—"

"Please."

Adolin looked down at his brother, blinking. Then his jaw set. "Fine."

Even as they spoke, Kaladin was crossing to the door that led to the side room where Dalinar and Navani were cloistered. Adolin had just turned to look at him when he flung it open. Then he paused, as if surprised at what he saw.

Sarus followed his gaze, and was also surprised. He had practically expected both elderly lighteyes to be either nearly or entirely unclothed. Instead, Dalinar sat on a sofa, his eyes glazed over, his expression thoughtful. He spoke softly to Navani, whose safehand sleeve was covering his hand while her freehand wrote busily on a pad. Whatever language he was speaking, it wasn't Alethi.

Navani spun to glare at Kaladin. "What is this? How dare you?"

"Can you wake him?" Kaladin asked. "We need to leave. Get out of this room—out of the palace."

"Leave the palace?" Elhokar asked, emerging from the privy. "What nonsense is this? It's the middle of a highstorm!"

"Your Majesty," Sarus said, bowing. "Captain Kaladin believes that our position here is compromised. His instincts on these things are usually good."

"Even when they're based on dreams?" Adolin asked. "This is the safest place in the warcamps. You want to drag the king out into a highstorm?"

Kaladin continued to ignore him. "We need to wake the highprince."

"The highprince," said Dalinar, eyes suddenly clearing, "is awake. What is happening?"

"The bridgemen want us to evacuate the palace," Adolin said.

Dalinar looked at Kaladin. "Soldier?"

"It's not safe here, sir." Kaladin's expression was pinched. He knew he had no evidence he could share, and he knew it was vital that they flee.

Sarus cast about. How could he maneuver this? How could he seize control of this conversation and turn the wheel where they needed to go?

"How do you know this?" Dalinar asked Kaladin.

"Instinct, sir."

The highstorm was abating. In the pause before Dalinar answered, Sarus heard the stormwall pass over them, giving way to the riddens.

"We go, then," said Dalinar at last, standing.

"What?" Elhokar demanded.

"Your Majesty," Sarus said. "I do not fully understand Captain Kaladin's reasoning myself. But I ask you—would you rather go out with him, six other guards, and the rest of your family, which includes two Shardbearers? Or would you prefer to remain here with only me and perhaps three other men to defend you? The storm has passed. We will be safe."

Elhokar looked at him, blinking. Then he nodded. "Very well. Lead the way."

Kaladin was already throwing the door to the corridor open. "Evenk, Delp, you're an advance squad," he ordered. "Scout the way out of the building, see if there's a clear path through the kitchens. Moash, Ralinor, you're the rearguard. Watch this room until I've got the king and highprince out of sight, then follow. Torfin, you're with Sarus. Both of you, stick with the king, no matter what happens."

All five men saluted and jumped to obey. As they moved, Sarus swore under his breath. Kaladin had just given Moash access to Elhokar's chambers, nearly unmonitored. Sarus would have to ensure that he hadn't made another ridiculous assassination attempt whenever they finished here.

They all followed Kaladin out of the room as Evenk and Delp rushed ahead. Dalinar hurried ahead to be abreast of the captain. "I'll be curious to hear exactly what prompted this later, Captain," he said. Sarus privately promised to come up with an excuse for Kaladin to use before it became necessary.

They descended a stairwell, then rounded a corner, and Kaladin froze. Sarus saw why at once. The corridor ahead was shrouded in darkness.

"What happened to the lights?" Adolin asked, peering into the shroud.

Sarus stepped up beside Kaladin, because he knew. The spherelamps ahead had been drained of Stormlight. Silently, he and Kaladin traded sphere pouches. Then he took one of the Stormlight-infused spheres out of the pouch he'd just taken from the captain and held it aloft.

The light revealed two things. The first was that a square hole had been cut in the palace wall, letting the wind blow in. The second was that there were two corpses on the ground. Evenk and Delp. Delp was face down, but Evenk's face was turned upward. His eyes had been burned out.

A Shardbearer.

Then a man stepped out of the opening, and Sarus amended his horrified realization. Not just a Shardbearer.

The Assassin in White. The man who had killed King Gavilar.

He wore flowing garments, though they clung to his rain-soaked skin. His head was bald, and his eyes were strangely bulbous in the way characteristic of the Shin. In his right hand he carried a Shardblade, long and silvery. He dragged it behind him, cutting a clean furrow in the stone floor. He turned to face them, then fell perfectly still. Stormlight was streaming from his body.

The Assassin in White was a Surgebinder. A Radiant.

Dalinar leapt into action first. "Adolin, with me! Renarin, defend the king! Take him back the way we came!" Then he reached out, grabbed the spear out of Torfin's hand, and charged the assassin.

"All of you, go with the king!" Kaladin roared, then rushed after him.

For a long moment, Sarus hesitated. He had been assigned to lead Elhokar's guard. Kaladin had ordered him to follow the king. That was his responsibility. He was good with a spear, but not as good as Kaladin. What could he possibly do here, anyway? It didn't make sense to stay.

He let out a breath, then handed his spear to Torfin. "Go," he ordered. "Defend His Majesty." Then he turned and followed his captain, picking up Evenk's fallen spear as he went.

The other three men had slowed by the time Sarus caught up to them, slowly approaching the assassin. "I told you to go, Sarus," Kaladin said quietly.

"Have me court-martialed later."

"Trident formation," Dalinar commanded, cutting off their quiet bickering. "Sarus and I in the center. Adolin and Kaladin on the flanks. Understood?"

"Understood," said Kaladin.

They reorganized, Dalinar glaring at the assassin. "I'm not asleep at the table this time. You're not taking anyone else from me, bastard!"

He charged, the rest of them half a step behind. The trident was a simple formation—the central prong kept the focus of the enemy while the sides attempted to flank and do the real damage.

Unfortunately, it had not been designed to fight Surgebinders. The man leapt, white clothes flapping around him, and then kept rising. No—falling, upward towards the ceiling. Then he reoriented, running down the wall towards Adolin. Out of the corner of his eye, Sarus could see Kaladin breath in sharply. He was glowing just slightly, nearly invisible compared with the assassin.

But though they were carrying different amounts of Stormlight, they had at least one Surge in common. That had unmistakably been Gravitation. He leapt at Adolin, striking the prince's Shardblade with his own to bat it aside, then reached out and touched the man's chest. Adolin yelped as the Surge of Gravitation took hold on him and he began to fall, flipping as he did, rising up towards the ceiling and striking with a crash. Sarus saw him roll back to his feet, but he was stuck up there.

And the rest of them were stuck down here.

They struck, all three of them at once, with their spears. The assassin let them strike true. He didn't even try to dodge. All three weapons embedded in his flesh. After a pause, as if he was waiting to make sure they had time to take in what they were seeing, he spun, sweeping his blade through all three spears, bisecting all of them. Then he dealt Dalinar a heavy blow with the back of his hand, sending the man sprawling. As he struggled to rise, the assassin stepped back, and Sarus watched the Stormlight weaving his torn flesh back together.

"Stand aside, both of you." The assassin's voice was soft, and Stormlight trailed from his lips as he spoke. "I don't have to kill you."

Sarus grabbed the other half of his broken spear in his offhand and moved to stand beside Kaladin. "What a coincidence," he said. "We don't intend to die."

The man let out a soft breath. "A shame."

Then he charged at them. They both had to duck to avoid his first sweeping strike, then they split, each striking towards one of his flanks.

Against an ordinary enemy, that maneuver might have worked. But even before his spear struck true, Sarus realized their mistake. The Assassin in White had limited Stormlight. He couldn't afford to turn this into a battle of attrition. He could afford to shrug off one blow. He couldn't afford to sustain a dozen.

The only sensible thing for the man to do was exactly what he did. Rather than be driven back by two attackers, allow them both to get a single blow in…

…and then kill one of them to make sure he didn't get a second.

Sarus realized all this just in time for his eyes to widen as the silvery Blade passed straight through his chest.

Pain filled his world. His vision went white. His eyes began to burn—he could feel them burning, could feel the smoke rising from them. He was being torn apart, severed from himself.

But then his vision cleared. His eyes, still smoking, looked into a completely different room. He could see the Blade in his chest, long and silver, and he thought he could see the faint outline of the hand holding its hilt, but it faded to nothing before he could see past its wrist.

Eyes watering, teeth gritted against the agony, he looked past the sword at the room around him. Glowing panes of glass stood upon exposed surfaces. A strange machine whirred in one corner, spindly arms of metal moving and sparking as they assembled something from a silvery substance.

There was a window in the room. Outside, he saw a city of massive, blocky stones, as if people had turned all the spires of the eastern Shattered Plains into homes to live in. The city overlooked a tranquil ocean, glittering with reflected sunlight. The sky overhead was pale blue. Within it, hanging in the air like decorations on the wall were a fleet of ships, their hulls built of white wood and silver metal, their sails shimmering like spun gold.

There were two people in the room. One was a man with pointed ears, dressed in workmanlike clothes of green and silver. His long, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he was smiling as he said something to the other occupant of the room.

She was a woman—no, a girl of no more than fifteen or sixteen years—wearing a form-fitting jumpsuit of a thick black fabric. In her hand was an ornate, silver-white hammer, and she stood beside an anvil, holding something metal into a nearby forge.

"—hammering wooden hulls together by hand, most likely," the man was saying, laughter in his voice.

The girl laughed too. Her voice was beautiful—musical, and yet strangely dissonant, in a way that was as fascinating as it was unsettling. Then she paused and turned to face him. Her eyes widened as she saw him.

He felt as if he knew her somehow.

She reached out a hand towards him. Her mouth opened. "Cu—"

The sword in his chest detonated. It shattered into more than a dozen glittering fragments. His vision went white again as the pain suddenly blossomed into something truly unbearable. Then everything went black, and he was gone.

110

LithosMaitreya

Jun 26, 2023

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Threadmarks 41: Of Honor

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

Subscriber

Jul 3, 2023

#1,121

Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

41

Of Honor

-x-x-x-

The few times I was happened upon by a roving band of orcs or an adventurer from Rhûn, I killed them or fled to a different mountain. What choice did I have? For if any found me and reported my location to their people, I was sure that I would be hunted and killed.

-x-x-x-

Rlain didn't worry when the highstorm passed over the barrack. It was just one more storm. There was nothing unusual about it. Certainly, he longed to go out into it and try to attract a spren, to escape the shell of dullform that left his mind and body sluggish. But he resisted that temptation, just as he always did.

Kaladin and Sarus were both away watching the king and highprince this storm. He didn't worry about that either. With Sarus in charge of the king's guard rotations, and Kaladin in charge of the highprince's, highstorms usually required the both of them. Moash was there, too. That was all three of Bridge Four's best spearmen.

Rlain didn't expect them to need those skills in the middle of a storm. But if they did, it wouldn't have occurred to him to worry that they might be insufficient.

He didn't worry when the riddens gave way to a clearing sky. Nomon shone brilliant blue overhead, the color of a windspren's soft glow illuminating the world. The storm had come near the start of the night shift today, so Sarus and Kaladin would both still be on duty for a few more hours.

He did start to worry when he woke up to help Rock cook breakfast, several hours later, and they still hadn't returned. It wasn't the first time a guard shift had been irregular for one reason or another. Everything was probably fine. But it was a sign that maybe, just maybe, something was wrong.

Rock shot Rlain a look when he cut himself chopping sweet vinebuds for the porridge. "You are worried," the big Horneater observed.

Rlain didn't answer. Both because he had to avoid rousing suspicion that he was more independent-minded than a parshman, and because his dullform brain couldn't come up with anything to say.

"I am worried too," Rock confided. "Morning shift left to relieve the night shift more than an hour ago. Kaladin and the others should have been back by now."

Rlain nodded. They continued working in silence, soon joined by Lopen. The one-armed Herdazian's chatter soothed Rlain's concerns. Everything was fine. Kaladin and Sarus had probably been held up by some unexpected need for more guards. Maybe a plateau run had been called at night—that didn't normally happen, but it wasn't unheard of—and they'd needed to go out onto the Plains to defend Prince Renarin and Highprince Dalinar. Or maybe something had caused the Kholin family to split up completely, requiring both first and second shift to combine to defend all of them. There were any number of reasons why they wouldn't have returned promptly. Such things happened. There was no cause for concern.

But then the minutes stretched into an hour. Into two. And Rlain could no longer tell himself that there was no cause for worry.

"All right," said Murk sharply, standing suddenly from the hand of cards he'd been playing with Rock, Gadol, Eth, and Mart. "My squad, grab your gear. We're going to see what's happening."

Several men leapt to their feet and started towards the racks near the front of the room, where their spears were waiting for them. And suddenly, the same impulse that had driven Rlain to ask Kaladin for a spear spurred him to stand.

I am Bridge Four's slave, he'd told Kaladin. But as bitter as he was over being an afterthought…

Sarus knew his secret, and had kept it. Kaladin had come back to the warcamp for him—would have come back, even if he'd had to do it alone. Everyone who had been at the Tower said so, and Rlain believed them.

He didn't trust Kaladin. But he trusted Sarus. And he cared about both of them. And Moash, Evenk, Torfin, and Delp. He didn't know them well—pretending to be a creature who seldom spoke, and never prompted others to speak, made it difficult to get to know anyone. But they were Bridge Four. And even if he wasn't, not really… part of him wanted to be.

He stepped up to Murk. "I want to come," he said, and found that he was speaking to the Rhythm of Resolve.

Murk blinked at him. "Shen?"

"I want to come," repeated Rlain. "I want to see if they're all right."

Murk's surprise faded into understanding. "Huh. Fair enough. Rock, can you spare Shen?"

"Of course," said Rock, waving them away. "There is no meal to prepare for hours. Go."

And so Rlain followed Murk and his squad out of the barrack and into the warcamp proper.

He didn't notice anything unusual about the people on the streets until Murk commented under his breath, "What in Chanarach's havah is going on?"

Rlain blinked, and suddenly realized that the crowds were acting odd. Humans, men and women alike, were seeking out those they knew and speaking in low voices. Some sort of news or rumor was spreading through the warcamp. And Rlain saw many of them shoot the men of Bridge Four looks as they passed. He had never been good enough at judging human expressions to guess at what they were thinking.

"What in Damnation happened last night?" said Yake.

"Don't know," said Murk. "But I intend to find out." He led them to the edge of the Kholin warcamp, and then to the royal warcamp where King Elhokar's palace loomed over his feasting basin and the dueling grounds. The sentries let them pass. Were there more of them than usual?

They had made it about halfway from the edge of the camp to the palace when, finally, they found a familiar face. Two familiar faces—Moash and Torfin were walking in the opposite direction. Their faces were pale. They looked haggard, exhausted—that, at least, was a look Rlain had learned to identify on human faces.

"Moash!" Murk called. The two men turned in their direction.

"Murk." Moash's voice was rough in the way human voices sometimes got when their throats were either overtaxed or sickening. "What are you doing here? It's not your shift for a few hours."

"Looking for you!" Murk exclaimed. "Talenelat's bleeding knuckles, man, we've been waiting in the barracks for hours with no word! What happened last night? Where are the others? Where's Kaladin?"

Moash's eyes closed momentarily—somewhere between a blink and momentarily passing out. "Kaladin's fine," he said. "Evenk and Delp are dead."

Rlain's breath caught. Without even thinking about it he attuned the Rhythm of the Lost.

"Dead?" Murk asked, sounding like he'd been punched in the gut. "What? How? Did—was there an assassination attempt?"

"Yes," said Moash. "The Assassin in White came for the highprince."

A terrible silence fell. Rlain's hands were suddenly shaking. The Assassin in White had been employed by his people, once. Eshonai had once told him that the man had obeyed them because they had carried a small, polished stone. That stone had been lost as Eshonai and the others escaped Kholinar, thrown away so that they would not have to be responsible for the strange, terrifying assassin.

…If they had kept the man, brought him back with them, might Evenk and Delp be alive now? And would the Listeners be blamed for the attack?

"The Assassin in White?" Murk whispered. "Is Dalinar—"

"Still alive."

"Sarus," Rlain said. He had noticed that one name had not been mentioned, either among the living or the dead.

Murk blinked at him, then looked back at Moash. "Like Shen said. Is Sarus all right?"

Moash's face twisted. "Don't know."

"Don't—"

"His heart's still beating," said Moash. "Somehow. He's unconscious, though. I don't… we don't know if he'll wake up."

"Why wouldn't he wake up?" Murk asked.

Moash just shook his head. "Look, Murk, I heard the story probably ten times in the past six hours and I still can't even wrap my head around it." He jerked his thumb at the palace behind him. "Go up to the ardents' infirmary. Second floor, north wing. Kaladin's there with him."

"Fine," Murk said. "Go get some sleep, Moash."

"I plan to," muttered Moash, turning away and stomping away from the palace, leaning on his spear. Torfin followed him.

"Come on, men," Murk said, beckoning, and the rest of them followed him into the palace.

Several ardents stopped what they were doing to stare at them as they approached the infirmary. There were strange expressions on their faces, as varied as the marbling on a singer's skin, but Rlain couldn't have read any of them even if he had cared to. As they stepped into the infirmary, one ardent started up from a desk near the doorway. He seemed to have been writing something, and Rlain could see several crumpled pages in a basket at his feet.

"You're men of Bridge Four," he said. His eyes were wide, and his tone—was that reverence? Rlain wasn't sure. "Are you here to see the Shardbreaker?"

"The—what?" Murk blinked at the man.

"Murk?" Kaladin's voice, and a moment later his head, emerged from the doorway to a side room. "Is that you?"

"Kaladin," said Murk. "I feel like I've said this half a dozen times already—what in Damnation is happening?"

Kaladin stared at them for a long moment. His face was drawn, and there were dark rings beneath his eyes. If Rlain remembered correctly, that was a sign of exhaustion in humans. "Come on in," he said. "Sarus is sleeping."

They passed the ardent and entered the small room. It was too small for all of them to comfortably fit, but they managed to squeeze in.

Sarus lay on a cot, perfectly still. He looked… different. It was still recognizably him, but it was like the transformation of a Listener entering nimbleform from warform. His face was deathly pale. He seemed thinner than he had been before, somehow. But, most notably, his hair—once prematurely greying after so long running the bridge—had gone entirely white.

Beside his head were two chairs. Kaladin sat down in one. Archive was seated in the other. The inkspren didn't look up as they entered. Her eyes were fixed on her Elsecaller, lying as still as a corpse on the cot.

"What happened?" whispered Murk.

"Your voice may be," Archive said. Rlain was surprised to find that she wasn't even keeping her voice down, despite the presence of an ardent just down the hall. "He will not wake."

"But you might bring in an ardent wondering why there's a woman in here," Kaladin told her.

"Would it matter?" Archive asked, still staring down at Sarus' face.

Kaladin sighed. Then he turned to Murk. "The Assassin ran him through," he said. "With his Shardblade."

Rlain's eyes went wide. He heard several of the men gasp.

But Sarus was still breathing. Slowly and shallowly, true, but Rlain could see his chest rising and falling. How was that possible? How could a man survive being stabbed by a Shardblade?"

"Ran him through?" Murk whispered.

"Right through the heart," Kaladin said. "I saw it. And then…" The captain passed a shaking hand over his eyes. "It's hard to even describe what happened, Murk. I'd have assumed I was dreaming, except Adolin, Dalinar, and the Assassin all saw it too. I'm still not totally convinced this isn't all a nightmare."

"Kelek's fingernails, man, if someone doesn't give me a straight answer soon," Murk growled, "I'm going to… well, I don't know what I'm going to do, but it's not going to be pretty!"

"The Assassin stabbed him," Kaladin said, looking down at the sleeping man. "And then… Sarus disappeared. Vanished, and the sword with him. In his place was someone else. Like no one I've ever seen before. He had to be nine or ten feet tall. Blonde hair and beard, and his eyes—they were glowing. Glowing gold. He looked around. Looked confused. The Assassin staggered back, looked terrified. And then—then the big man was gone, and Sarus was back. And then the Shardblade exploded."

Murk inhaled sharply. "Sorry, did you say the Shardblade—"

"Exploded, yeah." Kaladin leaned back in his chair, his eyes falling shut. "It was like nothing I've ever seen before. It shattered into almost twenty pieces. The Assassin stopped glowing. He was a Surgebinder, Murk, using Stormlight and Gravitation, just like me. But the moment that sword broke, it was like he lost the ability."

"He did," Syl's voice said softly. The honorspren appeared beside Archive's shoulder, looking down sadly at Sarus. Her hand came up to touch Archive's cheek's comfortingly. "That was no Shardblade. That was an Honorblade."

"A what?" Kaladin asked.

"An Honorblade." Murk's voice was a reverent whisper. "The weapons of the Heralds. You're sure?"

Syl nodded. "It was horrible," she whispered. "They were meant to be symbols. They were supposed to be of Honor. But now they're left to lesser people, just like the rest of the Shards."

"The Blade was not the only thing of Honor in that hall," Archive said softly. "The man was. You felt it?"

"I felt it." Syl shivered. "I've never felt anything like it before. Or if I have, I can't remember. It was like—I don't know. I can only imagine it was like being in the same room as Honor Himself."

Archive nodded. "I do not understand what was in that corridor," she said. "All I know is that my Radiant is lying unconscious after a wound that should have been fatal. I do not know when he will wake. If he will wake." Her eyes were still fixed on Sarus on the cot. "My fear is, Sylphrena. I am afraid."

Syl settled on the inkspren's shoulder and leaned into the nape of her neck without a word.

"They're calling him Shardbreaker," Kaladin said. "I think the ardents are trying to figure out how to react. It's looking like they're going to call it a miracle."

"Can't blame them," muttered Murk.

"Sure, it's understandable. But I don't know what it's going to cause. I don't know how people are going to react." Kaladin let out a sigh. "Sarus would know. But he can't exactly offer his opinion right now."

"No," muttered Murk. "No, I guess not. Storms." He tore his eyes from Sarus and looked at Kaladin. "You're dead on your feet, Kal."

"I'm not on my feet," Kaladin said.

"You know what I mean. Come on, come back to the barrack. Get some sleep."

"I'm not leaving Sarus undefended," Kaladin said. "What if Sadeas decides to come after him while he's unconscious? The man knows Sarus personally—hates him, personally. He might decide that he doesn't want to let the ardents turn Sarus into a living legend."

"I will protect him," said Rlain softly.

Kaladin glanced up at him. So did several of the others. Then, after a long moment, Kaladin nodded. "Okay," he said, standing. Then he held out a hand.

No. Not a hand.

"You'll need this," said Kaladin, offering Rlain his spear.

Rlain stared at it for a long moment. Then he reached out and took it.

"You're not a slave, Shen," Kaladin said softly. "I'm sorry I ever made you feel like you were."

"My name," Rlain said, before he could second-guess himself. "It is not Shen. It is Rlain."

Kaladin nodded. "Rlain, then. Thank you."

He followed Murk and his squad out of the small room. Rlain took the seat he had vacated. Seated across from each other, he and Archive lingered in silence, watching over the only human who knew both their secrets.

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Jul 3, 2023

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Threadmarks 42: Sanctified

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

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Jul 10, 2023

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Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

42

Sanctified

-x-x-x-

Until, one day, I heard a thrumming deep within the mountain I had made my home. It was as though the very stones had come to life, complete with a sonorous heartbeat.

-x-x-x-

Torol always had one of his ardents deliver a report to him every morning at breakfast. He'd gotten into the habit in the early days, when he and the Kholins were fighting a war on three or four fronts at once and he'd needed to know at once if one of the other highprinces had done something provocative. He'd never stopped, even once Alethkar united and something resembling a tenuous peace had settled over the highprincedoms.

The news he received changed in type, of course. Where once he could expect to have troop movements dictated to him, now he usually received much more inane intelligence. Still important, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care as much about which highprince had embarrassed himself at which party compared with learning how many thousands of men had died while he slept, and which color uniform they had been wearing.

So when he sat down to a bowl of spiced tallew porridge with Thaylen aquatic cremlings, and no ardent arrived to deliver his briefing, he grew concerned very quickly. His ardents knew that their positions were on the line if they failed in their duties, just like anyone else in his employ. What could be keeping them?

He found out not long before he finished eating. One of his ardents rushed into the dining hall, red-faced and gasping for breath. He immediately flung himself into a bow lower than any Torol had received from an ardent before—normally, despite their nominal status as slaves, the respect they showed their highprinces was tempered by their unique position of religious authority. "Forgive me…" the man wheezed, bald head shining with sweat, "for my… tardiness… Brightlord."

"Why are you so late?" Torol asked sharply. "Has something happened, or was this merely a mistake?"

"It was… both, Brightlord. I was… distracted… by something, but I… should not have… allowed it to… slow my service to you."

Torol pursed his lips. The man seemed extremely contrite—almost excessively so, but not in a way that seemed indicative of insincerity. "What was the distraction?"

The man took a few deep breaths to recover himself before straightening. "News from the Kholin warcamp, Brightlord," he said.

Torol felt a thrill—and a hint of the Thrill—flicker through him. "Don't leave it strung up, ardent—out with it. What happened in the Kholin warcamp?"

The man hesitated. He looked at once reluctant and eager; a strange combination, especially on a usually-stoic ardent. "Based on the word we received from House Kholin's ardential staff, Brightlord, a… well, a miracle."

Torol raised an eyebrow. "Those have been catching lately," he commented. "What is it this time? Did a whole regiment survive outside in the storm this time?"

"Ah, no, Brightlord. It appears the Assassin in White attacked His Majesty and Highprince Dalinar during the highstorm."

Torol blinked once, very slowly. "And… the miracle is that they are both still alive?" All that means is that Dalinar did a better job defending Elhokar than he did his brother.

"No, Brightlord—well, yes, they are both alive, but that is not the miracle. Brightlord—the Assassin in White was captured after—after attempting to kill a man with his Shardblade."

"Attempting to…?"

"The Shardblade… shattered, Brightlord. They are calling the man Shardbreaker."

Torol stared at the man. For a long moment, he thought he must have misheard. Then he frowned. "And you believe this?"

"One of our number went to the Kholin warcamp to verify, Brightlord," said the man in a hushed, reverent tone. "He saw the sixteen pieces of the broken blade."

"Shardblades don't break." It was one of the few constants of warfare. Shardbows and Shardhammers might appear to equalize battles against other Shardbearers, and horses and cavalry might grow more numerous, but Shardblades were unbreakable.

"Um, yes, Brightlord. That's why it's a miracle." The ardent cleared his throat. "Apparently the Assassin tried to run his victim through, and then a man appeared in the path of the blade and shattered it with his bare hands before vanishing again. We have been debating who this man might have been for hours, Brightlord. The current leading theory is that the Almighty has sent Jezerezeh'Elin or Talenelat'Elin back to aid mankind once again, but some are saying—"

"I will leave you to debate the theology of it," Torol said, waving a hand. A sinking feeling had started in his chest, and by now had already reached his stomach. "The man—the one the Assassin tried to run through—he survived?"

"He did, Brightlord. We haven't yet been able to send one of your own ardents to the Kholin hospitals to verify that independently, but all reports say that he is unconscious in their care. What his exact status is, no two sources agree. Some say he has been disfigured, others say he has become lighteyed, still others say that he has transformed into the giant man who broke the Blade. We will of course inform you the moment we have any reliable information on the topic."

"The man was darkeyed?" Torol asked quietly.

"So we have heard, Brightlord. Apparently he was one of the Kholin house guards."

"Which?"

The man blinked. "P-pardon?"

"Which guard, Damnation take you! Or, failing that, which Kholin was he guarding!?"

"O-oh," the man was visibly quailing, and suddenly Torol realized that he had stood up from his seat. His fists were clenched and shaking at his sides. With great effort, he composed himself and sat down.

"Have you been able to discern exactly who this man is?" Torol asked, his voice quiet and his teeth gritted.

"Ah—n-no, Brightlord. We know that the Kholin ardentia have tried to enhance the symmetry of his name, but we have no idea how similar his original name is to his new sacred moniker."

Torol vaguely remembered learning about this. Apparently some of the legendary figures of myth had taken new names as part of the ardentia's efforts to tie Vorinism to their achievements. The king who had written the storming book both Dalinar and Gavilar had been obsessed with, Nohadon, was apparently such a one. "And what," he said tightly, "is his new name?"

"Saruhas, Brightlord."

A sound like breaking glass rang in Torol's ears. It took him a moment to realize that it was breaking glass, and that his hand was bleeding quite heavily where his fist had tightened enough to shatter his wine cup. His eyes drifted towards his hand, dripping with blood and orange wine, then back to the ardent, who looked like he might have just removed his own need to visit the privy for the next few hours. "Thank you," Torol said, almost serene, "for bringing me this news. You may go."

The man fled.

Torol was normally finished with breakfast by the time Ialai arrived. She always preferred to snatch an extra hour of sleep while he dealt with the responsibilities of his army. But it felt as though the ardent had scarcely closed the servants' door when he heard the main door open behind him.

Ialai shrieked. "Torol! What—" Then she was at his side, taking his bloodied hand in both of hers, then hurriedly letting go as she felt the glass shards in his palm. He barely felt them worming their way deeper into his flesh.

"You're here early," Torol said, his voice perfectly smooth and somehow distant, as if there were an entire chasm between his ears and his lips.

"I'm late," Ialai snapped. "You should have been out of here two hours ago, Torol! What in Damnation—" She crossed the room in three quick strides and rang the bell for a servant, then returned to his side and began delicately picking the shards of glass out of his hand. The bleeding resumed as they came free. "What could have possessed you to do this to yourself?" she asked, eyes intent on her task.

Torol took a brief moment to decide how to answer her. When he looked back up, an ardent was wrapping a bandage around his hand. "I think he's been poisoned," Ialai was saying. Torol hadn't heard her sound this worried since Tailiah had been sick with the plague that had shot briefly through Kholinar ten years ago. "He's unresponsive, and you can see what he did. An involuntary spasm in the hand?"

"It could be, Brightness," said the ardent, wrapping his hand. "Boy—see to it that an apothecary and a surgeon are brought in to see to the highprince!"

Torol heard running feet fading away down the corridor. "I'm perfectly responsive," he said.

Ialai laughed shrilly. "Torol, you've heard one thing in ten I've said, at most. You probably are already off in your head again—"

"I am not." Torol tugged his arm away from the ardent and surged to his feet.

The ardent protested, "Brightlord, I haven't finished—"

"I know how to tie a bandage," Torol snapped. "I haven't been poisoned, and the glass is out of my hand. You may go."

"Paranoia?" Ialai said, but she was speaking to the ardent.

Torol slammed his injured hand against the wood of the table. The pain shot through him like the Thrill coursing in battle, clearing his mind and setting his blood aflame. "Enough!" he bellowed.

The ardent took two hurried steps back from him, but Ialai just reached out and laid a hand on the back of his own, her fingers shifting the loosened bandage. "Torol," she said softly. "Please. If you don't know what's wrong, at least let me have you tested—"

"I know exactly what is wrong. You, ardent—out. I need to speak with my wife. In private."

"Yes, Brightlord." The ardent seemed only too happy to put a closed door between him and Torol.

Ialai frowned up at him, her beautiful eyes—Tailiah's eyes, she had inherited her mother's eyes, oh Almighty why—narrowed in concern. "What happened, love?" she asked softly.

"They're sanctifying him, Ialai," Torol whispered, and his voice broke while he spoke. "They're—they're saying it's a miracle. That he is working miracles. I—I can't—"

"Who?" Ialai asked, staring at him in confusion. "Dalinar?"

"Sarus." The name left his lips like the vilest oath in any language of men.

Ialai's eyes widened. "What? Why? How?"

"The Assassin in White tried to run him through with a Shardblade," Torol croaked. "The Shardblade broke, Ialai."

Ialai's hands had come up to cover her mouth. Tears were glittering in her eyes. Had Tailiah cried, when he banished her into thin air? Had it hurt? Had it been frightening? Oh, Almighty why why why WHY WHY

Torol threw his arms around his wife, buried his face in her shoulder, and wept. He felt her shaking against him, felt her own tears dampening his coat. "This is impossible," she muttered, her voice muffled against the fabric. "This—they're lying to you. They have to be."

"For what?" Torol demanded. "Not a single one of the ardents I have here on the Plains ever met the boy. Even if they had, only a few people ever knew what happened to him. And if it were untrue, we would know in a matter of minutes just by listening to the rumors. Even ardents aren't stupid enough to risk being put to death for no reason at all. They're calling him Saruhas, Ialai! They're—as if he were a Herald, or a king of the Heraldic Epochs! They're calling him Shardbreaker! Him! The man who killed—who killed—"

WHY

They clung to one another, there in the dining room of their war palace. Torol felt as if the Shattered Plains had crumbled away, leaving him standing on a single island surrounded by bottomless cliffs, and hearing the rumble of a highstorm on a horizon. He didn't know yet whether he would brave the highstorm on the exposed rock, or if he would throw himself into the blackness.

But at length, both of their eyes grew dry. Their breathing calmed; their shaking slowed.

"I do not think I will be leaving the palace today," Torol whispered.

"Nor I, husband. Nor I. We must at least send someone to verify these rumors."

"Agreed. I'll send Latharil. He's reliable, cynical, loyal, and not prone to hysterics."

For a long moment they stood there, the late morning sun streaming gold into the room through the open shutters, outlining Ialai's hair in a honeyed halo. "And if they turn out to be true?" she finally asked.

"Then we kill him," Torol said simply. "No more biding our time, no more waiting for the opportune moment, no more letting him escape. If It is true, we kill him now, martyrdom or no martyrdom, before he has time to leverage this new fame into whatever he desires."

"If he truly survived a Shardblade—"

"We won't use a Shardblade," Torol said flatly. "Side-sword, spear, arrow, poison, rope, hammer, I don't care. Any of them. All of them. I will not suffer him to survive this."

Ialai nodded against him.

It took them a while longer before they parted and were ready to leave the room. Just before they did, Torol saw something out of the corner of his eye. He paused.

Ialai stopped at the door, looking back at him. "Husband?"

"Go," Torol said, looking at her; but his attention was fixed on the shape in his peripheral vision. "I just remembered something. Send for Latharil—I'll be there before he arrives."

"Very well," said Ialai, looking at him with concern. But she turned and left all the same, closing the door softly behind her.

Torol crossed the room, walking slowly, nonchalantly, towards some of the food he had abandoned on the table. Then, as he passed the thing, he lunged.

His fingers hit it just before it could escape. He felt the wood of the table vibrating under his fingers. The thing hissed sharply, like the sound of cold water being poured onto a heated stone.

He stared. It was a spren—what else could it be? It looked a bit like a glyph, if glyphs moved and shifted constantly in strange, incredibly complex shapes and configurations. It looked not unlike the pattern light made on a surface after passing through a cut gemstone.

What sort of spren was this?

"Too many lies!" it hissed at him.

Startled, he jumped—and accidentally let the thing go. It darted away from him, moving along the surface of the table, and then dropped over the edge and was lost in the shadows on the floor. For a long moment, he looked at where it had disappeared, before sighing and leaving the dining room. He would look into the strange talking spren later.

For now, there were more important things to find out.

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LithosMaitreya

Jul 10, 2023

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Threadmarks 43: The Voice

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LithosMaitreya

Character Witness

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Jul 17, 2023

#1,199

Thanks to Elran and BeaconHill for betareading, and to Phinnia for the commissioned icon.

-x-x-x-

43

The Voice

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I crept down into the very deepest caverns beneath the mountain. It was not curiosity, but caution which drove me. For I knew that while I might be seen as I explored, anything that would be dangerous to me as I investigated would be doubly so if it took me by surprise.

-x-x-x-

Renarin's only reaction was to blink when Adolin sat down heavily beside him. He didn't look over at his brother. He just kept looking at the wall, counting the grain-lines in the boards to keep himself from spiraling. A stimulationspren was vibrating angrily in the corner of his vision, but he ignored it. So far, it had not been joined by any others.

Adolin didn't speak. He just set a wineglass softly on the table in front of Renarin, then took a drink from his own. Then he sat still—not talking, not even looking directly at Renarin, just present. And, with agonizing slowness, the stimulationspren slowed, dimmed, and faded away.

Renarin let out a breath and reached for the goblet. The wine was sapphire. He shot his brother a quizzical look.

"Too strong?" Adolin asked.

"Father wouldn't approve," Renarin said, though he took a sip.

"Father can go string himself up," Adolin said evenly, taking a pull of his own.

Renarin frowned, studying Adolin worriedly. His older brother looked… well, exhausted was a good starting point. Renarin didn't know if he'd gotten any sleep at all the night before, but if he had, it hadn't been much. Adolin had found him and Elhokar after the fight with the Assassin in White, hurriedly told them the story, and then dashed off to ensure that the warcamp was secured.

Ask him what's happening, Glys said in Renarin's head.

I thought you didn't believe him.

Look, I'm sorry I argued. It was bad timing. Glys had immediately responded to the story of a broken Shardblade and a man surviving being run through by calling Renarin's brother a liar. They had not spoken much in the hours since. I know Adolin wouldn't lie to you. But I also know that what he told you happened is impossible. I just want to understand.

"Has the Assassin spoken?" Renarin asked his brother.

Adolin shook his head. "Just keeps muttering to himself in Shin. I asked one of the ardents, and they said it's mostly a few phrases over and over. He keeps calling out to Jezerezeh by the Shin name for him, muttering about profane stones and lights, and repeating a name to himself. They think it's his—Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless."

Any idea what that means? Renarin asked Glys.

I probably did at some point, but Shinovar probably wasn't personally important enough to me to remember much about it after I was enlightened, the spren said. Sorry.

"So we still don't know who sent him," Renarin said.

"We can guess," Adolin growled. "The Parshendi sent him after Uncle Gavilar. Guess they must have wanted to finish the job."

"Why wait, then?" Renarin countered. "Why not send him sometime in the last five years? Why wait until after we had accepted an offer of parley, only to attack now instead of when we were exposed during the meeting?"

"Those aren't even the only questions," said Adolin, his grim expression falling into something almost despairing. "Why did he stop to fight Father instead of just sticking him to the ceiling and going after Elhokar? He—you can't imagine what it was like, Renarin. I could see everything, and couldn't do anything to help. One touch on my uniform and I was on the ceiling. He could have done that to all of us. He was a better duelist than any I've ever known—how are we supposed to stop someone like that from even touching us? But he didn't. He separated the one Shardbearer, but then wasted his time with two darkeyed guards and the king's uncle. Why?" He sighed heavily. "I've been hearing those questions in every barrack I visit, every winehouse I pass, every watchfire I inspect. No one has any answers. Not that most of them are even talking about the Assassin."

"The Shardbreaker," Renarin said. Sarus.

"The Shardbreaker," said Adolin with a long sigh. "Storms. Kaladin hadn't so much as left the man's bedside when I last saw them."

"You aren't calling him 'bridgeboy' anymore?" Renarin asked.

Adolin's lips twitched into what might have been a smile, if he had been less tired. "I misjudged him," Adolin admitted. "I thought he was manipulating us. Worming his way into our good graces for some devious ends. But… well, it's hard to explain. I saw how he reacted when Sarus was stabbed. He'd have rather it be him getting run through, I think."

"And that… makes you like him better?" Renarin asked.

"A bit, yeah," Adolin said. "A scheming darkeyes trying to win the highprince's favor isn't a man I can trust, but a man who just wants to protect people? Him, I can respect."

Protect…? Glys mused thoughtfully. It can't be, can it?

What can't be, Glys? Renarin asked.

Just wondering if Captain Kaladin is a Windrunner, Glys said. But—well, I'd have said that was impossible yesterday. The honorspren would never come back to humanity after the Recreance. They're too rigid. But impossible things are catching right now, apparently. Do you think we can see Sarus?

"Where are they?" Renarin asked.

"Hm? Oh, Sarus and Kaladin? The surgeons had set them up in the ardential wing of Elhokar's palace. The ardents are losing their storming minds."

"Why?"

"Because a man just got stabbed by a Shardblade, and the Shardblade broke instead of him," Adolin said dryly. "They're not sure what to make of it, but most of them are pretty sure it has to be some kind of miracle."

Miracle is right, Glys said. If it's true—

It is, Renarin said firmly.

—then it's something that, as far as I know, has never happened before. Ever. My memory isn't what it was, but I think I'd remember something like this.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you this," said Adolin suddenly, glancing over his shoulder at the empty dining room. "But don't tell anyone where Sarus is staying, all right? Word is bound to spread eventually, but he needs rest right now, not a crowd watching to see if he wakes up."

"Of course," Renarin said. "I just… I'm curious."

Adolin grinned. "Of course you are," he said affectionately. "If you go to see them, tell Kaladin to get some sleep."

"I could tell you the same," Renarin pointed out.

"Oh, I plan to," Adolin said. He gestured with his mostly empty cup. "Finishing this, then walking my guards back to their barracks for shift change, then sleep."

Renarin blinked. "You're going to… escort your guards back to their barrack?"

"I realized that with Kaladin at Sarus' bedside and Sarus unconscious, those men will have no idea what happened," said Adolin. "Even once Moash and Torfin headed back, they'll still have no one who was actually there to ask about it. I owe them that much."

"Don't let them keep you up too long," said Renarin quietly. He wondered if the former bridgemen would appreciate the highprince's heir coming down to speak to them about their injured comrade, just to be at their disposal in the face of the madness of the past day.

None of them deserved Adolin. Not Bridge Four, not Father, and certainly not Renarin.

"I won't," Adolin promised.

Renarin nodded and drained the remainder of his wine. It burned pleasantly going down. Then he set it down and stood. He reached out hesitantly and touched Adolin momentarily on the shoulder before turning and hurrying out of their father's palace.

The streets on the way to Elhokar's palace weren't much more packed than usual for the late afternoon, but the people were clustered into tight knots, speaking excitedly with their friends in hushed voices rather than hollering at anyone they recognized across the street. The mood in the camp was strange—excited, nervous, and even a little frantic. No one knew what to make of things. The ardentia had taught, for centuries, that they lived in the Age of Solitude. That the time of miracles on Roshar had ended, and that the Almighty and His Heralds were occupied with the war for the Tranquiline Halls. Yet now there had been a miracle among them, unmistakable and undeniable. No one knew what it meant, and though it was intriguing, it was also frightening.

Even ardents could occasionally be impious, some more than others. Small wonder those who tended to think less about religion than even the most scandalous ardent were concerned about where this might lead. If, as Renarin had heard some whispering, the Heralds themselves were on the cusp of returning to Roshar, who would meet with their approval? And who would be found wanting?

He was halfway up the steps to the ardential wing when he passed a familiar face, bustling in the other direction. "Wit?"

The King's Wit blinked at him in apparent astonishment. Only—the man was no longer dressed in the finery expected of one of the king's direct servants. His dark hair had been shaven, and he wore an ardent's loose robes. And, as Renarin looked, he realized that he… wasn't Wit at all. His face was different. His eyes were a much darker shade of blue. His lips were fuller, his face more rounded. He bore, in fact, no resemblance at all to the King's Wit.

But before Renarin could apologize, the man sighed explosively. "Of course you would recognize me," he said, and as much as nothing in his face resembled the man Renarin had met at Elhokar's feasts, that was undeniably his voice. "I'd ask you what gave me away, but I see by your face you have no idea yourself."

"What?" Renarin asked.

What? Glys asked.

Wit snorted. "Do us all a favor and don't tell anyone you saw me, all right? Yes, that includes your brother. I need this disguise for a while longer."

"Disguise?" Renarin felt a little unsteady, and he didn't think it was because of the sapphire wine.

"Yes, disguise," Wit said impatiently. "I made a promise, and although I've broken more of those than there are stars in some skies, I would rather keep this one. I can't do that if you go blabbing about how Sadeas' newest ardent is actually Elhokar's wisecracking jester in disguise."

"Sadeas' ardent?"

Wit let out a soft breath, his face smoothing out somewhat. Suddenly he looked old—far older than either this ardent or the King's Wit had any right to look. Nothing in his appearance changed, but as his eyes met Renarin's, they resembled bottomless pools more than human eyes. "Everything will be clear eventually," he said. "Or at least, I hope so. All I am asking for is that you trust, if nothing else, that I mean you and your family no harm at all. Neither physical nor political, nor any other kind of injury. My business is my own, just as that spren in your pocket is yours."

Glys squeaked, and Renarin felt him burrow deeper into his pocket. He stared at Wit, distantly aware of a stimulationspren vibrating into being beside his temple. "How did you—"

Wit reached out and closed his hand around the stimulationspren. He pulled it away from Renarin. "It's all right," he said softly. "Really. It's going to be all right. I'm not going to tell anyone, and neither are you. One day, we'll laugh about all of this. And—to your spren? If it's any encouragement, you might know me better by another name." Then Wit lowered his lips to his closed fist and breathed out. When he opened his hand, the stimulationspren was gone. Somehow, Renarin felt better. Then Wit jerked his head up the stairs he'd come from. "You'd best hurry," he said. "I didn't mean to slow you, but it should be all right." Then he walked past Renarin and continued down the stairs.

A different name? Renarin asked Glys, who had fallen still. Do you have any idea what that meant?

I have a guess, Glys said, though he still sounded terrified. Could that have been…? There's a man who wanders around the cosmere, they say. I've never met him, but he spends a lot of time in the Cognitive Realm because it's the easiest way to travel long distances. He goes by a lot of names. I can't remember any of them right now. I'm sorry.

Do you think we can trust him?

I don't trust anyone, Glys said. But I think he only told us he knew about me because he didn't want us telling anyone about him. That's good. That means we have leverage over him, too. Just don't tell anyone about him, and he probably won't tell anyone about us.

Renarin nodded. I can do that.

He started back up the stairs. The moment he opened the door at the top, the sound of combat broke over his ears. He heard the ringing of a speartip against stone, and the thwack of wooden shafts impacting one another.

He ran forward. It took him a moment to realize exactly what he was seeing.

Four men in footsoldier's blue uniforms were converging around a single figure in the coat of a Bridge Four guardsman, complete with the patches of the Cobalt Guard and the gesheh glyph that was customary for them. His longspear moved rapidly as he fought them off, taking advantage of the narrow quarters in the hall to keep from being surrounded. But he was being pressed back, back into an open doorway leading to a small cell-like room. A room which, judging by the others lining the hall, would contain little more than a single cot—and, if Renarin guessed right, a man they called Shardbreaker lying upon it.

He thrust his hand out to the side, already bracing for the screaming that was about to cross his ears. Even as he sprinted forward, he suddenly realized what was so odd about the man in the Bridge Four uniform. He wasn't a man at all. He was a parshman.

The Shardblade fell into his hand just as he reached the fight. The screaming filled his ears, and he gritted his teeth against it as he swung blindly. The assassins had heard him approaching, and one had just turned and raised his spear to defend himself. Even Renarin's panicked, untrained swing was enough to shear through the man's spear and slice through the man's shoulder. He screamed as his arm fell limp, his fingers going lifeless and dull.

"Surround him!" shouted another man—and Renarin didn't have the experience to immediately put his back to a wall or a doorway. In a moment, he was surrounded. In another, there was a spear thrusting towards his side.

Then another spear blocked it. A moment later, Renarin found himself back-to-back with the uniformed parshman. "Prince Renarin," he said, his voice deep and musical, almost rumbling in his chest against Renarin's shoulders. "You should not be here."

"I—" Before he could come up with anything to say around the screaming in his ears, one of the men charged at the parshman. The parshman twisted against Renarin, deflecting the blow with the haft of his spear while, at the same time, pushing the point of the weapon towards another man. The man barely leapt back in time to avoid being skewered.

The man whose arm had been deadened was hanging back, clutching it, a rictus of pain on his face, but the third man had shifted his hands on his spear and was approaching Renarin warily, holding most of the haft of the spear between them. When he struck, the speartip moved in a way that almost seemed to contradict that of his hands—the spear rotating around a point in its center like a lever. The point descended towards Renarin's chest. He barely got his Blade up in time to block it, and the point struck the flat of the still-screaming weapon.

Almighty, Renarin was holding the corpse of a spren. What sort of spren had it been? Was it an inkspren, like Archive? A mistspren like Glys—or like Glys had been before he had gone to Sja-anat? Was it—

The spear stabbed towards his leg while he was frozen. Mere moments before it struck, a voice boomed through the corridor. "Stop."

Dead silence fell. Even the spren in Renarin's head stopped screaming, as if struck by the sheer weight of the command. Renarin jerkily turned his head.

Sarus stood in the doorway of his room, leaning heavily against the frame. His face was pallid, as if merely standing was almost more effort than he could bear right now. But despite the weakness of his posture, his eyes were hard as they glared at the would-be assassins.

One of them finally managed to throw off the effect of Sarus' command. He turned, raising his spear to charge the injured man.

"I said stop." Sarus' voice was quieter when he spoke this time. But somehow, that only lent it more force. It was the difference between a club against a shield and a knife between the ribs.

The man froze in place, muscles tensing as he pushed against an unseen force. While he stood there Sarus reached out and tugged his spear from his hands. Then he set its haft against the ground and leaned against it like a staff. Then he gave the frozen man a baleful glare. "Who sent you?" he asked.

"Highprince Sadeas!" the man said, the words seeming to tear themselves reluctantly from his throat.

"I might have known," said Sarus darkly. Then he took one hand off the spear and grabbed the doorframe to steady himself as he raised the weapon. With his remaining hand he thrust its point through the frozen man's throat. The man let out a choked scream, then fell dead, blood pouring from the wound as Sarus tugged the spear free.

"Lepik!" The man whose arm Renarin had severed screamed in horror.

Sarus shot that man a look, then looked at the other two survivors, still frozen in combat with the parshman. One hand still steadying himself against the wall, he stumbled towards them. With two thrusts, he killed both of them. They couldn't even raise their weapons to defend themselves.

Then Sarus turned to the man with the grey hand. The man was weeping, staring at him in horror and terror. "Tell Sadeas," Sarus said, in a voice as soft as a silk noose and as cold as a stormwind, "to send an archer next time. Go."

The man sprinted away, suddenly freed from whatever compulsion had held him there. He was to the stairwell in a heartbeat, and out of sight in another.

Sarus let out a ragged breath, leaning against his bloodied spear and looked at Renarin and the parshman with those black, intense eyes. Suddenly, Renarin found he could move again. He wasn't sure when that had changed. As he lowered his hands, his Shardblade suddenly began screaming again. He winced and dismissed it, leaving Glys' terrified whimpering as the only sound in his mind.

"That," said the parshman, "was new."

That was terrifying, Glys whispered. What is he?

Sarus chuckled roughly. "I have the strangest feeling," he said, turning and stumping back into his room, "that it wasn't." He lowered himself gingerly to sit on his cot.

Renarin gingerly stepped around the dead man in the doorway as he followed Sarus inside, the parshman at his heels. There were two chairs inside, but even as Renarin stepped in, one of them suddenly gained an occupant—Archive, the size of a human, watching Sarus expressionlessly with her chin propped up on her hand.

The parshman stood behind the other chair and gestured for Renarin to sit. Part of Renarin wanted to protest, but he didn't know how to do so without embarrassing himself, so he sat.

Sarus was breathing heavily, his head bowed between his arms, both hands clutching the spear above him. Blood still dripped down the haft, running over his fingers. "What happened, Shen?" he asked without looking up.

"They say the Assassin in White's Shardblade broke when he struck you," said the parshman—Shen. "He has been captured. Kaladin remained here all night. I only relieved him a few hours ago."

"And Renarin?" Sarus asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to visit," said Renarin. It was true. "And to satisfy my curiosity." That was also true.

"I suppose I can expect a lot of that," Sarus muttered. "Surviving a Shardblade. Storms. And now…" One hand lowered from the spear to cover his eyes with shaking, bloodstained fingers. "What is happening to me?" he whispered.

"I don't know," Shen said quietly, and for a moment silence fell over them.

Glys broke it, at least for Renarin. We should run.

What? Renarin's tone came out sharper than he intended. Glys, this is Sarus. My friend!

Your friend just murdered three helpless people in cold blood!

Three assassins who had just tried to kill him in his sleep, while he was recovering from being stabbed with a Shardblade! You can't blame him for reacting.

Reacting, no. Freezing seven people in place with nothing but his voice? Glys' voice was shrill.

Renarin let out a minute sigh. Sure, that was unsettling, but—

It was more than unsettling! It was… unnatural. Alien.

I'm not going to sever all ties with one of my oldest friends, one of the men who saved my family, and the only other person who knows I'm a Radiant, just because you're afraid of what you don't understand.

Glys didn't answer.

"Sarus?" Shen asked.

"I saw something," Sarus murmured. "I—and she saw me. She knew me. She was going to call me by my name. A name I can't remember, but which I know is mine." He looked up, and his eyes were no longer black, but grey. They were also watering. "I can't even remember what I've forgotten," he whispered. "But at least I remember that I have forgotten, now. I feel as though I've spent my whole life in darkness, thinking a single spherelamp was the sun. Now at last I have stepped outside. The light is blinding, but my eyes will adjust."

"You will grow," said Archive softly.

Sarus blinked, looking over at her as if he had forgotten she was there. Then he smiled. It didn't quite reach his eyes, which slowly darkened. As if a gray sun was setting, leaving night behind. "I will grow."

114

LithosMaitreya

Jul 17, 2023

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