Dalinar. “Hope you don’t mind,” Sebarial said. “We liberated your stores. They were blowing past at the time, headed for certain doom.”
Dalinar stared at them. Palona even had a novel out and was reading.
“You did this?” Dalinar asked, nodding toward Roion’s army.
“They were making a racket,” Sebarial said. “Wandering around, shouting at one another, weeping and wailing. Very poetic. Figured someone should get them moving. My army is already off on that other plateau. It’s getting rather cramped there, you realize.”
Palona flipped the page in her novel, barely paying attention.
“Have you seen Aladar?” Dalinar asked.
Sebarial gestured with his wine. “He should be about finished crossing as well. You’ll find him that direction. Downwind, happily.”
“Don’t dally,” Dalinar said. “You remain here, and you’re a dead man.”
“Like Roion?” Sebarial asked.
“Unfortunately.”
“So it is true,” Sebarial said, standing up, brushing off his trousers—which were somehow still dry. “Who am I going to make fun of now?” He shook his head sadly.
Dalinar rode off in the direction indicated. He noticed that, incredibly, a pair of bridgemen were still tailing him, only now catching up to where he’d found Sebarial. They saluted as Dalinar noticed them.
He told them where he was going, then sped up. Storms. In terms of pain, riding with broken ribs wasn’t much better than walking with them. Worse, actually.
He did find Aladar on the next plateau over, supervising his army as it seeped onto the perfectly round plateau that Shallan had indicated. Rust Elthal was there as well, wearing his Plate—one of the suits Adolin had won—and guiding one of Dalinar’s large, mechanical bridges. It settled down next to two others that spanned the chasm here, crossing in places the smaller bridges wouldn’t have been able to.
The plateau everyone was crowding onto was relatively small, by the scale of the Shattered Plains—but it was still several hundred yards across. It would fit the armies, hopefully.
“Dalinar?” Aladar asked, trotting his horse over. Lit by a large diamond—stolen from one of Navani’s fabrial lights, it seemed—hanging from his saddle, Aladar sported a soaked uniform and a bandage on his forehead, but appeared otherwise unharmed. “What in Kelek’s tongue is going on out here? I can’t get a straight answer from anyone.”
“Roion is dead,” Dalinar said wearily, reining in Gallant. “He fell with honor, attacking the assassin. The assassin, hopefully, has been distracted for a time.”
“We won the day,” Aladar said. “I scattered those Parshendi. We left well over half of them dead on that plateau, perhaps even three quarters. Adolin did even better on his plateau, and from reports, the ones on Roion’s plateau have fled. The Vengeance Pact is fulfilled! Gavilar is avenged, and the war is over!”
So proud. Dalinar had difficulty finding the words to deflate him, so he just stared at the other man. Feeling numb.
Can’t afford that, Dalinar thought, sagging in his saddle. Have to lead.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Aladar asked more softly. “That we won?”
“Of course it matters.”
“But . . . shouldn’t it feel different?”
“Exhaustion,” Dalinar said, “pain, suffering. This is what victory usually feels like, Aladar. We’ve won, yes, but now we have to survive with our victory. Your men are almost across?”
He nodded.
“Get everyone onto that plateau,” Dalinar said. “Force them up against one another if you have to. We need to be ready to move through the portal as quickly as possible, once it is opened.”
If it opened.
Dalinar urged Gallant forward, crossing one of the bridges to the packed ranks on the other side. From there, he forced his way—with difficulty—toward the center, where he hoped to find salvation.
* * *
Kaladin shot into the air after the assassin.
The Shattered Plains fell away beneath him. Fallen gemstones twinkled across the plateau, abandoned where tents had blown down or soldiers had fallen. They illuminated not only the central plateau, but three others around it and one more beyond, one that looked oddly circular from above.
The armies gathered on that one. Small lumps dotted the others like freckles. Corpses. So many.
Kaladin looked toward the sky. He was free once again. Winds surged beneath him, seeming to lift him, propel him. Carry him. His Shardblade shattered into mist and Syl zipped out, becoming a ribbon of light that spun around him as he flew.
Syl lived. Syl lived. He still felt euphoric about that. Shouldn’t she be dead? When he’d asked on their flight out, her response had been simple.
I was only as dead as your oaths, Kaladin.
Kaladin continued upward, out of the path of the oncoming storms. He could