The Way of Kings

And they got it. After just a few hours, the more talented of them – Moash at the forefront – started to change into fighting men. Their stances grew firmer, more confident. When they should have been feeling exhausted and frustrated, they were more determined.

Kaladin stepped back, watching Moash fall into his stance after Teft shoved him. It was a resetting exercise – Moash would let Teft knock him backward, then would scramble back and set his feet. Time and time again. The purpose was to train oneself to revert to the stance without thinking. Kaladin normally wouldn’t have started resetting exercises until the second or third day. Yet here, Moash was drinking it in after only two hours. There were two others – Drehy and Skar – who were nearly as quick to learn.

Kaladin leaned back against the stone wall. Cold water leaked down the rock beside him, and a frillbloom plant hesitantly opened its fanlike fronds beside his head: two wide, orange leaves, with spines on the tips, unfolding like opening fists.

Is it their bridgeman training? Kaladin wondered. Or is it their passion? He had given them a chance to fight back. That kind of opportunity changed a man.

Watching them stand resolute and capable in stances they had only been just been taught, Kaladin realized something. These men – cast off by the army, forced to work themselves near to death, then fed extra food by Kaladin’s careful planning – were the most fit, training-ready recruits he’d ever been given.

By seeking to beat them down, Sadeas had prepared them to excel.

50 Backbreaker Powder

“Flame and char. Skin so terrible. Eyes like pits of blackness.”

– A quote from the Iviad, probably needs no reference notation, but this comes from line 482, should I need to locate it quickly.

Shallan awoke in a small white room.

She sat up, feeling oddly healthy. Bright sunlight illuminated the window’s gossamer white shades, bursting through the cloth and into the room. Shallan frowned, shaking her muddled head. She felt as if she should be burned toes to ears, her skin flaking off. But that was just a memory. She had the cut on her arm, but otherwise she felt perfectly well.

A rustling sound. She turned to see a nurse hurrying away down a white hallway outside; the woman had apparently seen Shallan sit up, and was now taking the news to someone.

I’m in the hospital, Shallan thought. Moved to a private room.

A soldier peeked in, inspecting Shallan. It was apparently a guarded room.

“What happened?” she called to him. “I was poisoned, wasn’t I?” She felt a sudden shock of alarm. “Kabsal! Is he all right?”

The guard just turned back to his post. Shallan began to crawl out of bed, but he looked in again, glaring at her. She yelped despite herself, pulling up the sheet and settling back. She still wore one of the hospital robes, much like a soft bathing robe.

How long had she been unconscious? Why was she–

The Soulcaster! she realized. I gave it back to Jasnah.

The next half hour was one of the most miserable in Shallan’s life. She spent it suffering the periodic glares of the guard and feeling nauseated. What had happened?

Finally, Jasnah appeared at the other end of the hallway. She was wearing a different dress, black with light grey piping. She strode toward the room like an arrow and dismissed the guard with a single word as she passed. The man hurried away, his boots louder on the stone floor than Jasnah’s slippers.

Jasnah came in, and though she made no accusations, her glare was so hostile that Shallan wanted to crawl under her covers and hide. No. She wanted to crawl under the bed, dig down into the floor itself, and put stone between herself and those eyes.

She settled for looking downward in shame.

“You were wise to return the Soulcaster,” Jasnah said, voice like ice. “It saved your life. I saved your life.”

“Thank you,” Shallan whispered.

“Who are you working with? Which devotary bribed you to steal the fabrial?”

“None of them, Brightness. I stole it of my own volition.”

“Protecting them does you no good. Eventually you will tell me the truth.”

“It is the truth,” Shallan said, looking up, feeling a hint of defiance. “It’s why I became your ward in the first place. To steal that Soulcaster.”

“Yes, but for whom?”

“For me,” Shallan said. “Is it so hard to believe that I could act for myself? Am I such a miserable failure that the only rational answer is to assume I was duped or manipulated?”

“You have no grounds to raise your voice to me, child,” Jasnah said evenly. “And you have every reason to remember your place.”

Shallan looked down again.

Jasnah was silent for a time. Finally, she sighed. “What were you thinking, child?”