dank confines. “This one’s just a messy grave.”
“Hard to find death that isn’t messy, Teft,” Kaladin said.
Teft grunted, then started to greet the new recruits as they reached the bottom. Moash and Skar were watching over Dalinar and his sons as they attended some lighteyed feast—something that Kaladin was glad to be able to avoid. Instead, he’d come with Teft down here.
They were joined by the forty bridgemen—two from each reorganized crew—that Teft was training with the hope that they’d make good sergeants for their own crews.
“Take a good look, lads,” Teft said to them. “This is where we come from. This is why some call us the order of bone. We’re not going to make you go through everything we did, and be glad! We could have been swept away by a highstorm at any moment. Now, with Dalinar Kholin’s stormwardens to guide us, we won’t have nearly as much risk—and we’ll be staying close to the exit just in case . . .”
Kaladin folded his arms, watching Teft instruct as Rock handed practice spears to the men. Teft himself carried no spear, and though he was shorter than the bridgemen who gathered around him—wearing simple soldiers’ uniforms—they seemed thoroughly intimidated.
What else did you expect? Kaladin thought. They’re bridgemen. A stiff breeze could quell them.
Still, Teft looked completely in control. Comfortably so. This was right. Something about it was just . . . right.
A swarm of small glowing orbs materialized around Kaladin’s head, spren the shape of golden spheres that darted this way and that. He started, looking at them. Gloryspren. Storms. He felt as if he hadn’t seen the like in years.
Syl zipped up into the air and joined them, giggling and spinning around Kaladin’s head. “Feeling proud of yourself?”
“Teft,” Kaladin said. “He’s a leader.”
“Of course he is. You gave him a rank, didn’t you?”
“No,” Kaladin said. “I didn’t give it to him. He claimed it. Come on. Let’s walk.”
She nodded, alighting in the air and settling down, her legs crossed at the knees as if she were primly seating herself in an invisible chair. She continued to hover there, moving exactly in step with him.
“Giving up all pretense of obeying natural laws again, I see,” he said.
“Natural laws?” Syl said, finding the concept amusing. “Laws are of men, Kaladin. Nature doesn’t have them!”
“If I toss something upward, it comes back down.”
“Except when it doesn’t.”
“It’s a law.”
“No,” Syl said, looking upward. “It’s more like . . . more like an agreement among friends.”
He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.
“We have to be consistent,” she said, leaning in conspiratorially. “Or we’ll break your brains.”
He snorted, walking around a clump of bones and sticks pierced by a spear. Cankered with rust, it looked like a monument.
“Oh, come on,” Syl said, tossing her hair. “That was worth at least a chuckle.”
Kaladin kept walking.
“A snort is not a chuckle,” Syl said. “I know this because I am intelligent and articulate. You should compliment me now.”
“Dalinar Kholin wants to refound the Knights Radiant.”
“Yes,” Syl said loftily, hanging in the corner of his vision. “A brilliant idea. I wish I’d thought of it.” She grinned triumphantly, then scowled.
“What?” he said, turning back to her.
“Has it ever struck you as unfair,” she said, “that spren cannot attract spren? I should really have had some gloryspren of my own there.”
“I have to protect Dalinar,” Kaladin said, ignoring her complaint. “Not just him, but his family, maybe the king himself. Even though I failed to keep someone from sneaking into Dalinar’s rooms.” He still couldn’t figure out how someone had managed to get in. Unless it hadn’t been a person. “Could a spren have made those glyphs on the wall?” Syl had carried a leaf once. She had some physical form, just not much.
“I don’t know,” she said, glancing to the side. “I’ve seen . . .”
“What?”
“Spren like red lightning,” Syl said softly. “Dangerous spren. Spren I haven’t seen before. I catch them in the distance, on occasion. Stormspren? Something dangerous is coming. About that, the glyphs are right.”
He chewed on that for a while, then finally stopped and looked at her. “Syl, are there others like me?”
Her face grew solemn. “Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, that question.”
“You’ve been expecting it, then?”
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“So you’ve had plenty of time to think about a good answer,” Kaladin said, folding his arms and leaning back against a somewhat dry portion of the wall. “That makes me wonder if you’ve come up with a solid explanation or a solid lie.”
“Lie?” Syl said, aghast. “Kaladin!