this said.
They will come. You cannot stop their oaths. Look for those who survive when they should not. That pattern will be your clue.
“The bridgemen,” Taravangian whispered.
“What?” Adrotagia asked.
Taravangian looked up, blinking bleary eyes. “Dalinar’s bridgemen, the ones he took from Sadeas. Did you read the account of their survival?”
“I didn’t think it important. Just another game of power between Sadeas and Dalinar.”
“No. It’s more.” They had survived. Taravangian stood up. “Wake every Alethi sleeper we have; send every agent in the area. There will be stories told of one of these bridgemen. Miraculous survival. Favored of the winds. One is among them. He might not know yet exactly what he’s doing, but he has bonded a spren and sworn at least the First Ideal.”
“If we find him?” Adrotagia asked.
“We keep him away from Szeth at all costs.” Taravangian handed her the Diagram. “Our lives depend upon it. Szeth is a beast who gnaws at his leg to escape his bonds. If he gets free . . .”
She nodded, moving off to do as he commanded. She hesitated at the flaps to their temporary tent. “We might have to reassess our methods of determining your intelligence. What I have seen in the last hour makes me question whether ‘average’ can be applied to you today.”
“The assessments are not inaccurate,” he said. “You simply underestimate the average man.”
Besides, in dealing with the Diagram, he might not remember what he had written or why—but there were echoes sometimes.
She left, making way as Mrall stepped in. “Your Majesty,” he said. “Time runs short. The highprince is dying.”
“He’s been dying for years.” Still, Taravangian did hasten his step—as much as he was capable of doing these days—as he resumed his hike. He didn’t stop with any more of the soldiers, and gave only brief waves toward the cheers he received.
Eventually, Mrall led him over a hillside away from the immediate stench of the battle and the smoldering city. A series of stormwagons here flew an optimistic flag, that of the king of Jah Keved. The guards there let Taravangian enter their ring of wagons, and he approached the largest one, an enormous vehicle almost like a mobile building on wheels.
They found Highprince Valam . . . King Valam . . . in bed coughing. His hair had fallen out since Taravangian had last seen him, and his cheeks were so sunken that rainwater would have pooled in them. Redin, the king’s bastard son, stood at the foot of the bed, head bowed. With the three guards who stood in the room, there wasn’t room for Taravangian, so he stopped in the doorway.
“Taravangian,” Valam said, then coughed into his handkerchief. The cloth came back bloodied. “You’ve come for my kingdom, have you?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said.
“Don’t play coy,” Valam snapped. “I can’t stand it in women or in rivals. Stormfather . . . I don’t know what they’re going to make of you. I half think they’ll have you assassinated by the end of the week.” He waved with a sickly hand, all draped in cloth, and the guards made way for Taravangian to enter the small bedchamber.
“Clever ploy,” the king said. “Sending that food, those healers. The soldiers love you, I’ve heard. What would you have done if one side had won decisively?”
“I’d have had a new ally,” Taravangian said. “Grateful for my aid.”
“You helped all sides.”
“But the winner the most, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said. “We can minister to survivors, but not the dead.”
Valam coughed again, a great hacking mess. His bastard stepped up, concerned, but the king waved him back. “Would have figured,” the king said to him between wheezes, “you’d be the only one of my children to live, bastard.” He turned to Taravangian. “Turns out, you have a legitimate claim on the throne, Taravangian. Through your mother’s side, I think? A marriage to a Veden princess some three generations back?”
“I am not aware,” Taravangian said.
“Didn’t you hear me about being coy?”
“We both have a role to play in this production, Your Majesty,” Taravangian said. “I am merely speaking the lines as they were written.”
“You talk like a woman,” Valam said. He spat blood to the side. “I know what you’re up to. In a week or so, after caring for my people, your scribes will ‘discover’ your claim on the throne. You’ll reluctantly step in to save the kingdom, as urged by my own storming people.”
“I see you’ve had the script read to you,” Taravangian said