cast down buildings with a command, force the storms to obey, and heal with a touch.
Shallan walked to the door. By now, her absence in the other room would have been noticed. She should get back and give her lie, of seeking a drink for her parched throat. First, though, she’d want to put back on the ardent disguise. She sucked in some Stormlight, then breathed out, using the still-fresh memory of the ardent to create—
“Aaaaaaaah!”
The madman leaped to his feet, screaming. He lurched for her, moving with incredible speed. As Shallan yelped in surprise, he grabbed her and shoved her out of her cloud of Stormlight. The image fell apart, evaporating, and the madman smashed her up against the wall, his eyes wide, his breathing ragged. He searched her face with frantic eyes, pupils darting back and forth.
Shallan trembled, breath catching.
Ten heartbeats.
“One of Ishar’s Knights,” the madman whispered. His eyes narrowed. “I remember . . . He founded them? Yes. Several Desolations ago. No longer just talk. It hasn’t been talk for thousands of years. But . . . When . . .”
He stumbled back from her, hand to his head. Her Shardblade dropped into her hands, but she no longer appeared to need it. The man turned his back to her, walked to his bed, then lay down and curled up.
Shallan inched forward, and found he was back to whispering the same things as before. She dismissed the Blade.
Mother’s soul . . .
“Shallan?” Pattern asked. “Shallan, are you mad?”
She shook herself. How much time had passed? “Yes,” she said, walking hurriedly for the door. She peeked outside. She couldn’t risk using Stormlight again in this room. She’d just have to slip out—
Blast. Several people approached down the hallway. She would have to wait for them to pass. Except, they seemed to be heading right to this very door.
One of those men was Highlord Amaram.
Yes, I’m disappointed. Perpetually, as you put it.
Kaladin lay on his bench, ignoring the afternoon bowl of steamed, spiced tallew on the floor.
He had begun to imagine himself as that whitespine in the menagerie. A predator in a cage. Storms send that he didn’t end up like that poor beast. Wilted, hungry, confused. They don’t do well in captivity, Shallan had said.
How many days had it been? Kaladin found himself not caring. That worried him. During his time as a slave, he’d also stopped caring about the date.
He wasn’t so far removed from that wretch he’d once been. He felt himself slipping back toward that same mindset, like a man climbing a cliff covered in crem and slime. Each time he tried to pull himself higher, he slid back. Eventually he’d fall.
Old ways of thinking . . . a slave’s ways of thinking . . . churned within him. Stop caring. Worry only about the next meal, and keeping it away from the others. Don’t think too much. Thinking is dangerous. Thinking makes you hope, makes you want.
Kaladin shouted, throwing himself off his bench and pacing in the small room, hands to his head. He’d thought himself so strong. A fighter. But all they had to do to take that away was stuff him in a box for a few weeks, and the truth returned! He slammed himself against the bars and stretched a hand between them, toward one of the lamps on the wall. He sucked in a breath.
Nothing happened. No Stormlight. The sphere continued to glow, even and steady.
Kaladin cried out, reaching farther, pushing his fingertips toward that distant light. Don’t let the darkness take me, he thought. He . . . prayed. How long had it been since he’d done that? He didn’t have someone to properly write and burn the words, but the Almighty listened to hearts, didn’t he? Please. Not again. I can’t go back to that.
Please.
He strained for that sphere, breathing in. The Light seemed to resist, then gloriously streamed out into his fingertips. The storm pulsed in his veins.
Kaladin held his breath, eyes shut, savoring it. The power strained against him, trying to escape. He pushed off the bars and started pacing again, eyes closed, not so frantic as before.
“I’m worried about you.” Syl’s voice. “You’re growing dark.”
Kaladin opened his eyes and finally found her, sitting between two of the bars as if on a swing.
“I’ll be all right,” Kaladin said, letting Stormlight rise from his lips like smoke. “I just need to get out of this cage.”
“It’s worse than that. It’s the darkness . . . the