broken, because of this attack,” he said. “They do not know me as well as they presume. Let the feast continue, for I wish to speak with each and every one of you. The words you hold may mock, but if you must laugh, do it while looking me in the eyes.”
He stepped down from the table.
Then he went to work.
* * *
Hours later, Dalinar eventually let himself sit down in a seat beside a table at the feast, exhaustionspren swirling around him. He’d spent the rest of the evening moving through the crowd, forcing his way into conversations, drumming up support for his excursion onto the Plains.
He had pointedly ignored the pages with his visions on them, except when asked direct questions about what he’d seen. Instead, he had presented them with a forceful, confident man—the Blackthorn turned politician. Let them chew on that and compare him to the frail madman the falsified transcripts would make him out to be.
Outside, past the small rivers—they now glowed blue, the spheres having been changed to match the second moon—the king’s carriage rolled away, bearing Elhokar and Navani the short distance to the Pinnacle, where porters would carry them in a palanquin up to the top. Adolin had already retired, escorting Shallan back to Sebarial’s warcamp, which was a fair ride away.
Adolin seemed to be fonder of the young Veden woman than of any woman in the recent past. For that reason alone, Dalinar was increasingly inclined to encourage the relationship, assuming he could ever get some straight answers out of Jah Keved about her family. That kingdom was a mess.
Most of the other lighteyes had retired, leaving him on an island populated by servants and parshmen who cleared away food. A few master-servants, trusted for such duties, began to scoop the spheres out of the river with nets on long poles. Dalinar’s bridgemen, at his suggestion, were attacking the feast’s leftovers with the voracious appetite exclusive to soldiers who had been offered an unexpected meal.
A servant strolled by, then stopped, resting his hand on his side sword. Dalinar started, realizing he’d mistaken Wit’s black military uniform for that of a master-servant in training.
Dalinar put on a firm face, though inwardly he groaned. Wit? Now? Dalinar felt as if he’d been fighting on the battlefield for ten hours straight. Odd, how a few hours of delicate conversation could feel so similar to that.
“What you did tonight was clever,” Wit said. “You turned an attack into a promise. The wisest of men know that to render an insult powerless, you often need only to embrace it.”
“Thank you,” Dalinar said.
Wit nodded curtly, following the king’s coach with his eyes as it vanished. “I found myself without much to do tonight. Elhokar was not in need of Wit, as few sought to speak to him. All came to you instead.”
Dalinar sighed, his strength seeming to drain away. Wit hadn’t said it, but he hadn’t needed to. Dalinar read the implication.
They came to you, instead of the king. Because essentially, you are king.
“Wit,” Dalinar found himself asking, “am I a tyrant?”
Wit cocked an eyebrow, and seemed to be looking for a clever quip. A moment later, he discarded the thought. “Yes, Dalinar Kholin,” he said softly, consolingly, as one might speak to a tearful child. “You are.”
“I do not wish to be.”
“With all due respect, Brightlord, that is not quite the truth. You seek for power. You take hold, and let go only with great difficulty.”
Dalinar bowed his head.
“Do not sorrow,” Wit said. “It is an era for tyrants. I doubt this place is ready for anything more, and a benevolent tyrant is preferable to the disaster of weak rule. Perhaps in another place and time, I’d have denounced you with spit and bile. Here, today, I praise you as what this world needs.”
Dalinar shook his head. “I should have allowed Elhokar his right of rule, and not interfered as I did.”
“Why?”
“Because he is king.”
“And that position is something sacrosanct? Divine?”
“No,” Dalinar admitted. “The Almighty, or the one claiming to be him, is dead. Even if he hadn’t been, the kingship didn’t come to our family naturally. We claimed it, and forced it upon the other highprinces.”
“So then why?”
“Because we were wrong,” Dalinar said, narrowing his eyes. “Gavilar, Sadeas, and I were wrong to do as we did all those years ago.”
Wit seemed genuinely surprised. “You unified the kingdom, Dalinar. You did a good work, something that was sorely needed.”
“This is unity?” Dalinar asked, waving a