The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,69

Like crimson tears.

That night, Kaladin huddled in the barrack, listening to a highstorm buff et the wall. He curled against the cold stone. Thunder shattered the sky outside.

I can’t keep going like this, he thought. I’m dead inside, as sure as if I’d taken a spear through the neck.

The storm continued its tirade. And for the first time in a year, Kaladin found himself crying.

NINE YEARS AGO

Kal stumbled into the surgery room, the open door letting in bright white sunlight. At ten years old, he was already showing signs that he would be tall and lanky. He’d always preferred Kal to his full name, Kaladin. The shorter name made him fit in better. Kaladin sounded like a lighteyes’s name.

“I’m sorry, Father,” he said.

Kal’s father, Lirin, carefully tightened the strap around the arm of the young woman who was tied onto the narrow operating table. Her eyes were closed; Kal had missed the administration of the drug. “We will discuss your tardiness later,” Lirin said, securing the woman’s other hand. “Close the door.”

Kal cringed and closed the door. The windows were dark, shutters firmly in place, and so the only light was that of the Stormlight shining from a large globe filled with spheres. Each of those spheres was a broam, in total an incredible sum that was on permanent loan from Hearthstone’s landlord. Lanterns flickered, but Stormlight was always true. That could save lives, Kal’s father said.

Kal approached the table, anxious. The young woman, Sani, had sleek black hair, not tinged with even a single strand of brown or blond. She was fifteen, and her freehand was wrapped with a bloody, ragged bandage. Kal grimaced at the clumsy bandaging job—it looked like the cloth had been ripped from someone’s shirt and tied in haste.

Sani’s head rolled to the side, and she mumbled, drugged. She wore only a white cotton shift, her safehand exposed. Older boys in the town sniggered about the chances they’d had—or claimed to have had—at seeing girls in their shifts, but Kal didn’t understand what the excitement was all about. He was worried about Sani, though. He always worried when someone was wounded.

Fortunately, the wound didn’t look terrible. If it had been life-threatening, his father would have already begun working on it, using Kal’s mother—Hesina—as an assistant.

Lirin walked to the side of the room and gathered up a few small, clear bottles. He was a short man, balding despite his relative youth. He wore his spectacles, which he called the most precious gift he’d ever been given. He rarely got them out except for surgery, as they were too valuable to risk just wearing about. What if they were scratched or broken? Hearthstone was a large town, but its remote location in northern Alethkar would make replacing the spectacles difficult.

The room was kept neat, the shelves and table washed clean each morning, everything in its place. Lirin said you could tell a lot about a man from how he kept his workspace. Was it sloppy or orderly? Did he respect his tools or did he leave them casually about? The town’s only fabrial clock sat here on the counter. The small device bore a single dial at the center and a glowing Smokestone at its heart; it had to be infused to keep the time. Nobody else in the town cared about minutes and hours as Lirin did.

Kal pulled over a stool to get a better vantage. Soon he wouldn’t need the stool; he was growing taller by the day. He inspected Sani’s hand. She’ll be all right, he told himself, as his father had trained him. A surgeon needs to be calm. Worry just wastes time.

It was hard advice to follow.

“Hands,” Lirin said, not turning away from gathering his tools.

Kal sighed, hopping off his stool and hurrying over to the basin of warm, soapy water by the door. “Why does it matter?” He wanted to be at work, helping Sani.

“Wisdom of the Heralds,” Lirin said absently, repeating a lecture he’d given many times before. “Deathspren and rotspren hate water. It will keep them away.”

“Hammie says that’s silly,” Kal said. “He says deathspren are mighty good at killing folk, so why should they be afraid of a little water?”

“The Heralds were wise beyond our understanding.”

Kal grimaced. “But they’re demons, father. I heard it off that ardent who came teaching last spring.”

“That’s the Radiants he spoke of,” Lirin said sharply. “You’re mixing them again.”

Kal sighed.

“The Heralds were sent to teach mankind,” Lirin said. “They led us against the