smiled at him, then turned and picked up her things—he hadn’t noticed her dropping them during the kiss—and then walked to the door. “I am not a patient woman, you realize. I am as spoiled as those highprinces, accustomed to getting what I want.”
He snorted. Neither was true. She could be patient. When it suited her. What she meant was that it didn’t suit her at the moment.
She opened the door, and Captain Kaladin himself peered in, inspecting the room. The bridgeman certainly was earnest. “Watch her as she travels home for the day, soldier,” Dalinar said to him.
Kaladin saluted. Navani pushed by him and left without a goodbye, closing the door and leaving Dalinar alone again.
Dalinar sighed deeply, then walked to the chair and settled down by the hearth to think.
He started awake some time later, the fire having burned out. Storms. Was he falling asleep in the middle of the day, now? If only he didn’t spend so much time at night tossing and turning, head full of worries and burdens that should never have been his. What had happened to the simple days? His hand on a sword, secure in the knowledge that Gavilar would handle the difficult parts?
Dalinar stretched, rising. He needed to go over preparations for releasing the king’s proclamation, and then see to the new guards—
He stopped. The wall of his room bore a series of stark white scratches forming glyphs. They hadn’t been there before.
Sixty-two days, the glyphs read. Death follows.
* * *
A short time later, Dalinar stood, straight-backed, hands clasped behind him as he listened to Navani confer with Rushu, one of the Kholin scholars. Adolin stood nearby, inspecting a chunk of white rock that had been found on the floor. It had apparently been pried from the row of ornamental stones rimming the room’s window, then used to write the glyphs.
Straight back, head up, Dalinar told himself, even though you want to just slump in that chair. A leader did not slump. A leader was in control. Even when he least felt like he controlled anything.
Especially then.
“Ah,” said Rushu—a young female ardent with long eyelashes and buttonlike lips. “Look at the sloppy lines! The improper symmetry. Whoever did this is not practiced with drawing glyphs. They almost spelled death wrong—it looks more like ‘broken.’ And the meaning is vague. Death follows? Or is it ‘follow death’? Or Sixty-Two Days of Death and Following? Glyphs are imprecise.”
“Just make the copy, Rushu,” Navani said. “And don’t speak of this to anyone.”
“Not even you?” Rushu asked, sounding distracted as she wrote.
Navani sighed, walking over to Dalinar and Adolin. “She is good at what she does,” Navani said softly, “but she’s a little oblivious sometimes. Anyway, she knows handwriting better than anyone. It’s one of her many areas of interest.”
Dalinar nodded, bottling his fears.
“Why would anyone do this?” Adolin asked, dropping the rock. “Is it some kind of obscure threat?”
“No,” Dalinar said.
Navani met Dalinar’s eyes. “Rushu,” she said. “Leave us for a moment.”
The woman didn’t respond at first, but scuttled out at further prompting. As she opened the door, she revealed members of Bridge Four outside, led by Captain Kaladin, his expression dark. He’d escorted Navani away, then come back to find this—and then had immediately sent men to check on and retrieve Navani.
He obviously considered this lapse his fault, thinking that someone had sneaked into Dalinar’s room while he was sleeping. Dalinar waved the captain in.
Kaladin hurried over, and hopefully didn’t see how Adolin’s jaw tightened as he regarded the man. Dalinar had been fighting the Parshendi Shardbearer when Kaladin and Adolin had clashed on the battlefield, but he’d heard talk of their run-in. His son certainly did not like hearing that this darkeyed bridgeman had been put in charge of the Cobalt Guard.
“Sir,” Captain Kaladin said, stepping up. “I’m embarrassed. One week on the job, and I’ve failed you.”
“You did as commanded, Captain,” Dalinar said.
“I was commanded to keep you safe, sir,” Kaladin said, anger bleeding into his voice. “I should have posted guards at individual doors inside your quarters, not just outside of the room complex.”
“We’ll be more observant in the future, Captain,” Dalinar said. “Your predecessor always posted the same guard as you did, and it was sufficient before.”
“Times were different before, sir,” Kaladin said, scanning the room and narrowing his eyes. He focused on the window, too small to let someone slip in. “I still wish I knew how they got in. The guards heard nothing.”
Dalinar inspected the young soldier,