acquired your abilities.”
“No. The wind is mine. The sky is mine. They have been mine since childhood. You are the trespasser here. Not me.”
They broke apart, Kaladin throwing the assassin backward. He stopped thinking so much about his Lashings, about what he should be doing.
Instead, he let himself be.
He dove for Szeth, coat flapping, spear pointed for the man’s heart. Szeth got out of the way, but Kaladin dropped the spear and swung his hand in a great arc. Syl formed an axehead halberd. It came within inches of Szeth’s face.
The assassin cursed, but responded with his Blade. A shield was in Kaladin’s hand a split second later, and he slammed away the attack. Syl shattered even as he did so, forming back into a sword as Kaladin thrust forward with empty hands. The sword appeared, and the weapon bit deeply into Szeth’s shoulder.
The assassin’s eyes widened. Kaladin twisted his Blade, pulling it out of the assassin’s flesh, then tried a backhand to end the man permanently. Szeth was too fast. He Lashed himself backward, forcing Kaladin to follow, piling on Lashing after Lashing.
Szeth’s hand still worked. Damnation. The strike to the shoulder hadn’t fully severed the soul leading to the arm. And Kaladin’s Stormlight was running out.
Szeth’s looked even lower, fortunately. The assassin seemed to be using it up at a much faster rate than Kaladin, judging by the decreased glow around him. Indeed, he didn’t try to heal his shoulder—which would have required a lot of Light—but continued to flee, jerking back and forth, trying to outrun Kaladin.
The shadowy battle continued below, a tangle of lightning, winds, and spinning clouds. As Kaladin chased Szeth, something gargantuan moved beneath the clouds, a shadow the size of a city. A second later, the top of an entire plateau broke through the dark clouds, twisting slowly, as if it had been thrown upward from below.
Szeth almost ran into it. Instead, he Lashed upward enough to crest it, then landed on the surface. He ran along it as it turned lethargically in the air, its momentum running out.
Kaladin landed behind him, though he retained most of a Lashing upward, keeping himself light. He ran up the side of the plateau, heading almost directly upward toward the sky, dodging to the side as Szeth suddenly twisted and cut through a rock formation, sending boulders tumbling downward.
Rocks clattered along the surface of the plateau, which itself began to tumble back down toward the ground. Szeth reached the peak and threw himself off, and Kaladin followed shortly thereafter, launching from the stone surface, which sank like a dying ship into the roiling clouds.
They continued their chase, but Szeth did it falling backward along the stormtop, his eyes on Kaladin. Wild eyes. “You’re trying to convince me!” he shouted. “You can’t be one of them!”
“You’ve seen that I am,” Kaladin shouted back.
“The Voidbringers!”
“Are back,” Kaladin shouted.
“THEY CAN’T BE. I AM TRUTHLESS!” The assassin panted. “I need not fight you. You are not my target. I have . . . I have work to do. I obey!”
He turned and Lashed himself downward.
Into the clouds, down toward the plateau where Dalinar had gone.
* * *
Shallan rushed into the room as the storms crashed together outside.
What was she doing? There wasn’t time. Even if she could open a portal, those storms were here. She wouldn’t have time to get people through.
They were dead. All of them. Thousands had probably already been swept to their deaths by the stormwall.
She ran to the last lamp anyway, infusing its spheres.
The floor started to glow.
Ardents jumped to their feet in surprise and Inadara yelped. Adolin stumbled in through the doorway, a crashing wind and a spray of angry rain trailing him.
Beneath them, the intricate design shone from within. It looked almost like stained glass. Gesturing frantically for Adolin to join her, Shallan ran across to the lock on the wall.
“Sword,” she shouted at Adolin over the sounds of storms outside. “In there!” Renarin had long since dismissed his.
Adolin obeyed, scrambling forward, summoning his Shardblade. He rammed it into the slot, which again flowed to fit the weapon.
Nothing happened.
“It’s not working,” Adolin shouted.
Only one answer.
Shallan grabbed the hilt of his sword and whipped it out—ignoring the scream in her mind that came from touching it—then tossed it aside. Adolin’s sword vanished to mist.
A deep truth.
“There is something wrong with your Blade, and with all Blades.” She hesitated for just a second. “All but mine. Pattern!”
He formed in her hands, the Blade she’d used to