he had begun planning. What would he do when he got out? When he got out. He had to tell himself that forcibly. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Dalinar. His mind, though . . . his mind betrayed him, and whispered things that were not true.
Distortions. In his state, he could believe that Dalinar lied. He could believe that the highprince secretly wanted Kaladin in prison. Kaladin was a terrible guard, after all. He’d failed to do anything about the mysterious countdowns scrawled on walls, and he’d failed to stop the Assassin in White.
With his mind whispering lies, Kaladin could believe that Bridge Four was happy to be rid of him—that they pretended they wanted to be guards, just to make him happy. They secretly wanted to go on with their lives, lives they’d enjoy, without Kaladin spoiling them.
These untruths should have seemed ridiculous to him. They didn’t.
Clink.
Kaladin snapped his eyes open, growing tense. Had they come to take him, to execute him, as the king wished? He leaped to his feet, coming down in a battle stance, the empty bowl from his meal held to throw.
The jailer at the cell door stepped back, eyes widening. “Storms, man,” he said. “I thought you were asleep. Well, your time is served. King signed a pardon today. They didn’t even strip your rank or position.” The man rubbed his chin, then pulled the cell door open. “Guess you’re lucky.”
Lucky. People always said that about Kaladin. Still, the prospect of freedom forced away the darkness inside of him, and Kaladin approached the door. Wary. He stepped out, the guard backing away.
“You are a distrustful one, aren’t you?” the jailer said. A lighteyes of low rank. “Guess that makes you a good bodyguard.” The man gestured for Kaladin to leave the room first.
Kaladin waited.
Finally, the guard sighed. “Right, then.” He walked out the doorway into the hall beyond.
Kaladin followed, and with each step felt himself traveling back a few days in time. Shut the darkness away. He wasn’t a slave. He was a soldier. Captain Kaladin. He’d survived this . . . what had it been? Two, three weeks? This short time back in a cage.
He was free now. He could return to his life as a bodyguard. But one thing . . . one thing had changed.
Nobody will ever, ever, do this to me again. Not king or general, not brightlord or brightlady.
He would die first.
They passed a leeward window, and Kaladin stopped to breathe in the cool, fresh scent of open air. The window gave an ordinary, mundane view of the camp outside, but it seemed glorious. A small breeze stirred his hair, and he let himself smile, reaching a hand to his chin. Several weeks’ growth. He’d have to let Rock shave that.
“Here,” the jailer said. “He’s free. Can we finally be done with this farce, Your Highness?”
“Your Highness”? Kaladin turned down the hallway to where the guard had stopped at another cell—one of the larger ones set into the hallway itself. Kaladin had been put in the deepest cell, away from the windows.
The jailer twisted a key in the lock of the wooden door, then pulled it open. Adolin Kholin—wearing a simple tight uniform—stepped out. He also had several weeks of growth on his face, though the beard was blond, speckled black. The princeling took a deep breath, then turned toward Kaladin and nodded.
“He locked you away?” Kaladin said, baffled. “How . . . ? What . . . ?”
Adolin turned to the jailer. “Were my orders followed?”
“They wait in the room just beyond, Brightlord,” the jailer said, sounding nervous.
Adolin nodded, moving in that direction.
Kaladin reached the jailer, taking him by the arm. “What is happening? The king put Dalinar’s heir in here?”
“The king didn’t have anything to do with it,” the jailer said. “Brightlord Adolin insisted. So long as you were in here, he wouldn’t leave. We tried to stop him, but the man’s a prince. We can’t storming make him do anything, not even leave. He locked himself away in the cell and we just had to live with it.”
Impossible. Kaladin glanced at Adolin, who walked slowly down the hallway. The prince looked a lot better than Kaladin felt—Adolin had obviously seen a few baths, and his prison cell had been much larger, with more privacy.
It had still been a cell.
That was the disturbance I heard, Kaladin thought, on that day, early after I was imprisoned. Adolin came and shut himself in.
Kaladin jogged up to the man.