Kaladin landed on his feet, momentum still propelling him forward. Something flashed in the air beside him, falling toward the ground.
The spearhead.
Kaladin bellowed in defiance, spinning, snatching the spearhead from the air. It had been falling tip-down, and he caught it by the four inches of haft that remained, gripping it with his thumb on the stump, the sharp point extending down beneath his hand. The Shardbearer brought his weapon around as Kaladin skidded to a stop and flung his arm to the side, slamming the spearhead right in the Shardbearer’s visor slit.
All fell still.
Kaladin stood with his arm extended, the Shardbearer standing just to his right. Amaram had pulled himself halfway up the side of the shallow hollow. Kaladin’s spearmates stood on the edge of the scene, gawking. Kaladin stood there, gasping, still gripping the haft of the spear, hand before the Shardbearer’s face.
The Shardbearer creaked, then fell backward, crashing to the ground. His Blade dropped from his fingers, hitting the ground at an angle and digging into the stone.
Kaladin stumbled away, feeling drained. Stunned. Numbed. His men rushed up, halting in a group, staring at the fallen man. They were amazed, even a little reverent.
“Is he dead?” Alabet asked softly.
“He is,” a voice said from the side.
Kaladin turned. Amaram still lay on the ground, but he had pulled off his helm, dark hair and beard slicked with sweat. “If he were still alive, his Blade would have vanished. His armor is falling off of him. He is dead. Blood of my ancestors… you killed a Shardbearer!”
Oddly, Kaladin wasn’t surprised. Just exhausted. He looked around at the bodies of men who had been his dearest friends.
“Take it, Kaladin,” Coreb said.
Kaladin turned, looking at the Shardblade, which sprouted at an angle into the stone, hilt toward the sky.
“Take it,” Coreb said again. “It’s yours. Stormfather, Kaladin. You’re a Shardbearer!”
Kaladin stepped forward, dazed, raising his hand toward the hilt of the Blade. He hesitated just an inch away from it.
Everything felt wrong.
If he took that Blade, he’d become one of them. His eyes would even change, if the stories were right. Though the Blade glistened in the light, clean of the murders it had performed, for a moment it seemed red to him. Stained with Dallet’s blood. Toorim’s blood. The blood of the men who had been alive just moments before.
It was a treasure. Men traded kingdoms for Shardblades. The handful of darkeyed men who had won them lived forever in song and story.
But the thought of touching that Blade sickened him. It represented everything he’d come to hate about the lighteyes, and it had just slaughtered men he loved dearly. He could not become a legend because of something like that. He looked at his reflection in the Blade’s pitiless metal, then lowered his hand and turned away.
“It’s yours, Coreb,” Kaladin said. “I give it to you.”
“What?” Coreb said from behind.
Ahead, Amaram’s honor guard had finally returned, apprehensively appearing at the top of the small hollow, looking ashamed.
“What are you doing?” Amaram demanded as Kaladin passed him. “What– Aren’t you going to take the Blade?”
“I don’t want it,” Kaladin said softly. “I’m giving it to my men.”
Kaladin walked away, emotionally exhausted, tears on his cheeks as he climbed out of the hollow and shoved his way through the honor guard.
He walked back to the warcamp alone.
48
Strawberry
“They take away the light, wherever they lurk. Skin that is burned.”
Shallan sat quietly, propped up in a sterile, white-sheeted bed in one of Kharbranth’s many hospitals. Her arm was wrapped in a neat, crisp bandage, and she held her drawing board in front of her. The nurses had reluctantly allowed her to sketch, so long as she did not “stress herself.”
Her arm ached; she’d sliced herself more deeply than she’d intended. She’d hoped to simulate a wound from breaking the pitcher; she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to realize how much like a suicide attempt it might seem. Though she’d protested that she’d simply fallen from bed, she could see that the nurses and ardents didn’t accept it. She couldn’t blame them.
The results were embarrassing, but at least nobody thought she might have Soulcast to make that blood. Embarrassment was worth escaping suspicion.
She continued her sketch. She was in a large, hallwaylike room in a Kharbranthian hospital, the walls lined with many beds. Other than obvious aggravations, her two days in the hospital had gone fairly well. She’d had a lot of time to think about that strangest of afternoons, when she’d seen ghosts, transformed glass to blood, and had an ardent offer to resign the ardentia to be with her.
She’d done several drawings of this hospital room. The creatures lurked in her sketches, staying at the distant edges of the room. Their presence made it difficult for her to sleep, but she was slowly growing accustomed to them.
The air smelled of soap and lister’s oil; she was bathed regularly and her arm washed with antiseptic to frighten away rotspren. About half of the beds held sick women, and there were wheeled fabric dividers with wooden frames that could be rolled around a bed for privacy. Shallan wore a plain white robe that untied at the front and had a long left sleeve that tied shut to protect her safehand.
She’d transferred her safepouch to the robe, buttoning it inside the left sleeve. Nobody had looked in the pouch. When she’d been washed, they’d unbuttoned it and given it to her without a word, despite its unusual weight. One did not look in a woman’s safepouch. Still, she kept hold of it whenever she could.
In the hospital, her every need was seen to, but she could not leave. It reminded her of being at home on her father’s estates. More and more, that frightened her as much as the symbolheads did. She’d tasted independence, and she didn’t want to go back to what she had been. Coddled, pampered, displayed.
Unfortunately, it was unlikely she’d be able to return to studying with Jasnah. Her supposed suicide attempt gave her an excellent reason to return home. She had to go. To remain, sending the Soulcaster away on its own, would be selfish considering this opportunity to leave without arousing suspicion. Besides, she’d used the Soulcaster. She could use the long trip home to figure out how she’d done it, then be ready to help her family when she arrived.
She sighed, and then with a few shadings, she finished her sketch. It was a picture of that strange place she had gone. That distant horizon with its powerful yet cold sun. Clouds running toward it above, endless ocean below, making the sun look as if it were at the end of a long tunnel. Above the ocean hovered hundreds of flames, a sea of lights above the sea of glass beads.
She lifted the picture up, looking at the sketch underneath. It depicted her, huddled on her bed, surrounded by the strange creatures. She didn’t dare tell Jasnah what she had seen, lest it reveal that she had Soulcast, and therefore committed the theft.
The next picture was one of her, lying on the ground amid the blood. She looked up from the sketchpad. A white-clothed female ardent sat against the wall nearby, pretending to sew but really keeping watch in case Shallan decided to harm herself again. Shallan made a thin line of her lips.
It’s a good cover, she told herself. It works perfectly. Stop being so embarrassed.
She turned to the last of her day’s sketches. It depicted one of the symbolheads. No eyes, no face, just that jagged alien symbol with points like cut crystal. They had to have something to do with the Soulcasting. Didn’t they?