as she wanted, but it would have to do. Drained, she crawled back down her improvised ladder one last time and flopped on the chasmfiend’s back amid the rubble. Her arms felt like she’d been lifting something heavy—and technically she probably had, since climbing meant lifting herself.
“Done?” Kaladin called up from the chasm floor.
“No,” Shallan said, “but close enough. I think we might fit.”
Kaladin was silent.
“You are coming up into the hole I just cut, Kaladin bridgeboy, chasmfiend-slayer and gloombringer.” She leaned over the side of the chasmfiend to look at him. “We are not having another stupid conversation about you dying in here while I bravely continue on. Understand?”
“I’m not sure if I can walk, Shallan,” Kaladin said with a sigh. “Let alone climb.”
“You’re going,” Shallan said, “if I have to carry you.”
He looked up, then grinned, face covered in dried violet ichor that he’d wiped away as best he could. “I’d like to see that.”
“Come on,” Shallan said, rising with some difficulty herself. Storms, she was tired. She used the Blade to hack a vine off the wall. It took two hits to get it free, amusingly. The first severed its soul. Then, dead, it could actually be cut by the sword.
The upper part withdrew, curling like a corkscrew to get height. She tossed down one side of the length she’d cut free. Kaladin took it with one hand, and—favoring his bad leg—carefully made his way up to the top of the chasmfiend. Once up, he flopped down beside her, sweat making trails through the grime on his face. He looked up at the ladder cut into the rock. “You’re really going to make me climb that.”
“Yes,” she said. “For perfectly selfish reasons.”
He looked to her.
“I’m not going to have your last sight in life be a view of me standing in half a filthy dress, covered in purple blood, my hair an utter mess. It’s undignified. On your feet, bridgeboy.”
In the distance, she heard a rumbling. Not good . . .
“Climb up,” he said.
“I’m not—”
“Climb up,” he said more firmly, “and lie down in the cubby, then reach your hand over the edge. Once I near the top, you can help me the last few feet.”
She fretted for a moment, then fetched her satchel and made the climb. Storms, those handholds were slick. Once up, she crawled into the shallow cubby and perched precariously, reaching down with one hand as she braced herself with the other. He looked up at her, then set his jaw and started climbing.
He mostly pulled himself with his hands, wounded leg dangling, the other one steadying him. Heavily muscled, his soldier’s arms slowly pulled him up slot by slot.
Below, water trickled down the chasm. Then it started to gush.
“Come on!” she said.
Wind howled through the chasms, a haunting, eerie sound that called through the many rifts. Like the moaning of spirits long dead. The high sound was accompanied by a low, rumbling roar.
All around, plants withdrew, vines twisting and pulling tight, rockbuds closing, frillblooms folding away. The chasm hid.
Kaladin grunted, sweating, his face tense with pain and exertion, his fingers trembling. He pulled himself up another rung, then reached his hand up toward hers.
The stormwall hit.
ONE YEAR AGO
Shallan slipped into Balat’s room, holding a short note between her fingers.
Balat spun, standing. He relaxed. “Shallan! You nearly killed me with fright.”
The small room, like many in the manor house, had open windows with simple reed shutters—those were closed and latched today, as a highstorm was approaching. The last one before the Weeping. Servants outside pounded on the walls as they affixed sturdy stormshutters over the reed ones.
Shallan wore one of her new dresses, the expensive kind that Father bought for her, after the Vorin style, straight and slim-waisted with a pocket on the sleeve. A woman’s dress. She also wore the necklace he had given her. He liked it when she did that.
Jushu lounged on a chair nearby, rubbing some kind of plant between his fingers, his face distant. He had lost weight during the two years since his creditors had dragged him from the house, though with those sunken eyes and the scars on his wrists, he still didn’t look much like his twin.
Shallan eyed the bundles Balat had been preparing. “Good thing Father never checks in on you, Balat. Those bundles look so fishy, we could make a stew out of them.”
Jushu chuckled, rubbing the scar on one wrist with the other hand. “Doesn’t help that he jumps every time a