Words of Radiance

He grinned, the figures resolving into men in blue uniforms. Teft scrambled across the rock like a madman to meet him. Others came after, shouting and laughing. Drehy, Peet, Bisig, and Sigzil, Rock towering over them all.

“Another one?” Rock asked, eyeing Kaladin’s Shardblade. “Or is he yours?”

“No,” Kaladin said. “I took this from the assassin.”

“He is dead, then?” Teft asked.

“Yes.”

“You slew the Assassin in White,” Bisig breathed. “It’s truly over then.”

“I suspect that it is just beginning,” Kaladin said, nodding toward the building. “What is this place?”

“Oh!” Bisig said. “Come on! We need to show you the tower—that Radiant girl taught us how to summon the plateau back, so long as we have you.”

“Radiant girl?” Kaladin asked. “Shallan?”

“You don’t sound surprised,” Teft said with a grunt.

“She has a Shardblade,” Kaladin said. One that didn’t scream in his mind. Either she was a Radiant or she had another of these Honorblades. As he stepped up to the building, he noticed a bridge in the shadows nearby.

“It’s not ours,” Kaladin said.

“No,” Leyten said. “That belongs to Bridge Seventeen. We had to leave ours behind in the storm.”

Rock nodded. “We were too busy stopping lighteyed heads from becoming too friendly with swords of enemies. Ha! But we needed bridge here. Way platform works, we had to get off him for Shallan Davar to transport herself back.”

Kaladin poked his head into the chamber inside the hill, then paused at the beauty he found inside. Other members of Bridge Four waited here, including a tall man Kaladin didn’t immediately recognize. Was that one of Lopen’s cousins? The man turned around, and Kaladin realized what he’d mistaken for a cap was a reddish skullplate.

Parshendi. Kaladin tensed as the Parshendi man saluted. He was wearing a Bridge Four uniform.

And he had the tattoo.

“Rlain?” Kaladin said.

“Sir,” Rlain said. His features were no longer rounded and plump, but instead sharp, muscular, with a thick neck and a stronger jaw, now lined by a red and black beard.

“It appears you are more than you seemed,” Kaladin said.

“Pardon, sir,” he said. “But I would suggest that applies to both of us.” When he spoke now, his voice had a certain musicality to it—an odd rhythm to his words.

“Brightlord Dalinar has pardoned Rlain,” Sigzil explained, walking around Kaladin and entering the chamber.

“For being Parshendi?” Kaladin asked.

“For being a spy,” Rlain said. “A spy for a people who, it appears, no longer exist.” He said this to a different beat, and Kaladin thought he could sense pain in that voice. Rock walked over and put a hand on Rlain’s shoulder.

“We can give you the story once we get back to the city,” Teft said.

“We figured you’d come back here,” Sigzil added. “To this plateau, and so we needed to be here to greet you, for all Brightness Davar grumbled. Anyway, there’s a lot to tell—a lot is happening. I think that you’re kind of going to be at the center of it.”

Kaladin took a deep breath, but nodded. What else did he expect? No more hiding. He had made his decision.

What do I tell them about Moash? he wondered as the members of Bridge Four piled into the room around him, chattering about how he needed to infuse the spheres in the lanterns. A couple of the men bore wounds from the fighting, including Bisig, who kept his right hand in his coat pocket. Grey skin peeked out from the cuff. He’d lost the hand to the Assassin in White.

Kaladin pulled Teft aside. “Did we lose anyone else?” Kaladin asked. “I saw Mart and Pedin.”

“Rod,” Teft said with a grunt. “Dead to the Parshendi.”

Kaladin closed his eyes, breathing out in a hiss. Rod had been one of Lopen’s cousins, a jovial Herdazian who hardly spoke Alethi. Kaladin had barely known him, but the man had still been Bridge Four. Kaladin’s responsibility.

“You can’t protect us all, son,” Teft said. “You can’t stop people from feeling pain, can’t stop men from dying.”

Kaladin opened his eyes, but did not challenge those statements. Not vocally, at least.

“Kal,” Teft said, voice getting even softer. “At the end there, right before you arrived… Storms, son, I swear I saw a couple of the lads glowing. Faintly, with Stormlight.”

“What?”

“I’ve been listening to readings of those visions Brightlord Dalinar sees,” Teft continued. “I think you should do the same. From what I can guess, it seems that the orders of the Knights Radiant were made up of more than just the knights themselves.”

Kaladin looked over the men of Bridge Four, and found himself smiling. He shoved down the pain at his losses, at least for the time being. “I wonder,” he said softly, “what it will do to Alethi social structure when an entire group of former slaves starts going about with glowing skin.”

“Not to mention those eyes of yours,” Teft said with a grunt.

“Eyes?” Kaladin said.

“Haven’t you seen?” Teft said. “What am I saying? Ain’t no mirrors out on the Plains. Your eyes, son. Pale blue, like glassy water. Lighter than that of any king.”