couldn’t find where she’d gone. “Syl?” he asked. She kept hiding from him.
“There was a Cryptic at the fight,” her voice said softly.
“You mentioned those before, didn’t you? A type of spren?”
“A revolting type.” She paused. “But not evil, I don’t think.” She sounded begrudging. “I was going to follow it, as it fled, but you needed me. When I went back to look, it had hidden from me.”
“What does it mean?” Kaladin asked, frowning.
“Cryptics like to plan,” Syl said slowly, as if recalling something long lost. “Yes . . . I remember. They debate and watch and never do anything. But . . .”
“What?” Kaladin asked, rising.
“They’re looking for someone,” Syl said. “I’ve seen the signs. Soon, you might not be alone, Kaladin.”
Looking for someone. To choose, like him, as a Surgebinder. What kind of Knight Radiant had been made by a group of spren Syl so obviously detested? It didn’t seem like someone he’d want to get to know.
Oh, storms, Kaladin thought, sitting back down. If they choose Adolin . . .
The thought should have made him sick. Instead, he found Syl’s revelation oddly comforting. Not being alone, even if it did turn out to be Adolin, made him feel better and drove away some small measure of his gloom.
As he was finishing his meal, a thump came from the hallway. The door opening? Only lighteyes could visit him, though so far none had. Unless you counted Wit.
The storm catches everyone, eventually. . . .
Dalinar Kholin stepped into the room.
Despite his sour thoughts, Kaladin’s immediate reaction—drilled into him over the years—was to stand and salute, hand to breast. This was his commanding officer. He felt an idiot as soon as he did it. He stood behind bars and saluted the man who’d put him here?
“At ease,” Dalinar said with a nod. The wide-shouldered man stood with hands clasped behind his back. Something about Dalinar was imposing, even when he was relaxed.
He looks like the generals from the stories, Kaladin thought. Thick of face and greying of hair, solid in the same way that a brick was. He didn’t wear a uniform, the uniform wore him. Dalinar Kholin represented an ideal that Kaladin had long since decided was a mere fancy.
“How are your accommodations?” Dalinar asked.
“Sir? I’m in storming prison.”
A smile cracked Dalinar’s face. “So I see. Calm yourself, soldier. If I’d ordered you to guard a room for a week, would you have done it?”
“Yes.”
“Then consider this your duty. Guard this room.”
“I’ll make sure nobody unauthorized runs off with the chamber pot, sir.”
“Elhokar is coming around. He’s finished cooling off, and now only worries that releasing you too quickly will make him look weak. I’ll need you to stay here a few more days, then we’ll draft a formal pardon for your crime and have you reinstated to your position.”
“I don’t see that I have any choice, sir.”
Dalinar stepped closer to the bars. “This is hard for you.”
Kaladin nodded.
“You are well cared for, as are your men. Two of your bridgemen guard the way into the building at all times. There is nothing to worry you, soldier. If it’s your reputation with me—”
“Sir,” Kaladin said. “I guess I’m just not convinced that the king will ever let me go. He has a history of letting inconvenient people rot in dungeons until they die.”
As soon as he said the words, Kaladin couldn’t believe they’d come from his lips. They sounded insubordinate, even treasonous. But they’d been sitting there, in his mouth, demanding to be spoken.
Dalinar remained in his posture with hands clasped behind his back. “You speak of the silversmiths back in Kholinar?”
So he did know. Stormfather . . . had Dalinar been involved? Kaladin nodded.
“How did you hear of that incident?”
“From one of my men,” Kaladin said. “He knew the imprisoned people.”
“I had hoped we could escape those rumors,” Dalinar said. “But of course, rumor grows like lichen, crusted on and impossible to completely scrub free. What happened with those people was a mistake, soldier. I’ll admit that freely. The same won’t happen to you.”
“Are the rumors about them true, then?”
“I would really rather not speak of the Roshone affair.”
Roshone.
Kaladin remembered screams. Blood on the floor of his father’s surgery room. A dying boy.
A day in the rain. A day when one man tried to steal away Kaladin’s light. He eventually succeeded.
“Roshone?” Kaladin whispered.
“Yes, a minor lighteyes,” Dalinar said, sighing.
“Sir, it’s important that I know of this. For my own peace of mind.”
Dalinar looked him up and down.