First, you must get a spren to approach.

The type of gemstone is relevant; some spren are naturally more intrigued by certain gemstones. In addition, it is essential to calm the spren with something it knows and loves. A good fire for a flamespren, for example, is a must.

—Lecture on fabrial mechanics presented by Navani Kholin to the coalition of monarchs, Urithiru, Jesevan, 1175

Lirin was impressed at how calm he felt as he checked the child’s gums for scurvy. Years of training as a surgeon served him well today. Breathing exercises—intended to keep his hands steady—worked as well during espionage as they did during surgery.

“Here,” he said to the child’s mother, digging a small carved carapace chit from his pocket. “Show this to the woman at the dining pavilion. She’ll get some juice for your son. Make certain he drinks it all, each morning.”

“Very thank you,” the woman said in a thick Herdazian accent. She gathered her son close, then looked to Lirin with haunted eyes. “If … if child … found…”

“I will make certain you’re notified if we hear of your other children,” Lirin promised. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She nodded, wiped her cheeks, and carried the child to the watchpost outside of town. Here, a group of armed parshmen lifted her hood and compared her face to drawings sent by the Fused. Hesina, Lirin’s wife, stood nearby to read the descriptions as required.

Behind them, the morning fog obscured Hearthstone. It seemed to be a group of dark, shadowy lumps. Like tumors. Lirin could barely make out tarps stretched between buildings, offering meager shelter for the many refugees pouring out of Herdaz. Entire streets were closed off, and phantom sounds—plates clinking, people talking—rose through the fog.

Those shanties would never last a storm, of course, but they could be quickly torn down and stowed. There simply wasn’t enough housing otherwise. People could pack into stormshelters for a few hours, but couldn’t live like that.

He turned and glanced at the line of those waiting for admittance today. It vanished into the fog, attended by swirling insectile hungerspren and exhaustionspren like jets of dust. Storms. How many more people could the town hold? The villages closer to the border must be filled to capacity, if so many were making their way this far inward.

It had been over a year since the coming of the Everstorm and the fall of Alethkar. A year during which the country of Herdaz—Alethkar’s smaller neighbor to the northwest—had somehow kept fighting. Two months ago, the enemy had finally decided to crush the kingdom for good. Refugee numbers had increased soon after. As usual, the soldiers fought while the common people—their fields trampled—starved and were forced out of their homes.

Hearthstone did what it could. Aric and the other men—once guards at Roshone’s manor, now forbidden weapons—organized the line and kept anyone from sneaking into town before Lirin saw them. He had persuaded Brightness Abiajan that it was essential he inspect each individual. She worried about plague; he just wanted to intercept those who might need treatment.

Her soldiers moved down the line, alert. Parshmen carrying swords. Learning to read, insisting they be called “singers.” A year after their awakening, Lirin still found the notions odd. But really, what was it to him? In some ways, little had changed. The same old conflicts consumed the parshmen as easily as they had the Alethi brightlords. People who got a taste of power wanted more, then sought it with the sword. Ordinary people bled, and Lirin was left to stitch them up.

He returned to his work. Lirin had at least a hundred more refugees to see today. Hiding somewhere among them was a man who had authored much of this suffering. He was the reason Lirin was so nervous today. The next person in line was not him, however, but was instead a ragged Alethi man who had lost an arm in battle. Lirin inspected the refugee’s wound, but it was a few months old at this point, and there was nothing Lirin could do about the extensive scarring.

Lirin moved his finger back and forth before the man’s face, watching his eyes track it. Shock, Lirin thought. “Have you suffered recent wounds you’re not telling me about?”

“No wounds,” the man whispered. “But brigands … they took my wife, good surgeon. Took her … left me tied to a tree. Just walked off laughing…”

Bother. Mental shock wasn’t something Lirin could cut out with a scalpel. “Once you enter the town,” he said, “look for tent fourteen. Tell the women there I sent you.”

The man nodded dully, his stare hollow. Had he registered the words? Memorizing the man’s features—greying hair with a cowlick in the back, three large moles on the upper left cheek, and of course the missing arm—Lirin made a note to check that tent for him tonight. Assistants there watched refugees who might turn suicidal. It was, with so many to care for, the best Lirin could manage.

“On with you,” Lirin said, gently pushing the man toward the town. “Tent fourteen. Don’t forget. I’m sorry for your loss.”

The man walked off.

“You say it so easily, surgeon,” a voice said from behind.

Lirin spun, then immediately bowed in respect. Abiajan, the new citylady, was a parshwoman with stark white skin and fine red marbling on her cheeks.

“Brightness,” Lirin said. “What was that?”

“You told that man you were sorry for his loss,” Abiajan said. “You say it so readily to each of them—but you seem to have the compassion of a stone. Do you feel nothing for these people?”

“I feel, Brightness,” Lirin said, “but I must be careful not to be overwhelmed by their pain. It’s one of the first rules of becoming a surgeon.”

“Curious.” The parshwoman raised her safehand, which was shrouded in the sleeve of a havah. “Do you remember setting my arm when I was a child?”

“I do.” Abiajan had returned—with a new name and a new commission from the Fused—after fleeing with the others following the Everstorm. She had brought many parshmen with her, all from this region, but of those from Hearthstone only Abiajan had returned. She remained closed-lipped about what she had experienced in the intervening months.

“Such a curious memory,” she said. “That life feels like a dream now. I remember pain. Confusion. A stern figure bringing me more pain—though I now recognize you were seeking to heal me. So much trouble to go through for a slave child.”

“I have never cared who I heal, Brightness. Slave or king.”

“I’m sure the fact that Wistiow had paid good money for me had nothing to do with it.” She narrowed her eyes at Lirin, and when she next spoke there was a cadence to her words, as if she were speaking the words to a song. “Did you feel for me, the poor confused slave child whose mind had been stolen from her? Did you weep for us, surgeon, and the life we led?”

“A surgeon must not weep,” Lirin said softly. “A surgeon cannot afford to weep.”

“Like a stone,” she said again, then shook her head. “Have you seen any plaguespren on these refugees? If those spren get into the city, it could kill everyone.”

“Disease isn’t caused by spren,” Lirin said. “It is spread by contaminated water, improper sanitation, or sometimes by the breath of those who bear it.”

“Superstition,” she said.

“The wisdom of the Heralds,” Lirin replied. “We should be careful.” Fragments of old manuscripts—translations of translations of translations—mentioned quick-spreading diseases that had killed tens of thousands. Such things hadn’t been recorded in any modern texts he’d been read, but he had heard rumors of something strange to the west—a new plague, they were calling it. Details were sparse.

Abiajan moved on without further comment. Her attendants—a group of elevated parshmen and parshwomen—joined her. Though their clothing was of Alethi cut and fashion, the colors were lighter, more muted. The Fused had explained that singers in the past eschewed bright colors, preferring to highlight their skin patterns instead.

Lirin sensed a search for identity in the way Abiajan and the other parshmen acted. Their accents, their dress, their mannerisms—they were all distinctly Alethi. But they grew transfixed whenever the Fused spoke of their ancestors, and they sought ways to emulate those long-dead parshmen.

Lirin turned to the next group of refugees—a complete family for once. Though he should have been happy, he couldn’t help wondering how difficult it was going to be to feed five children and parents who were all flagging from poor nutrition.

As he sent them on, a familiar figure moved along the line toward him, shooing away hungerspren. Laral wore a simple servant’s dress now, with a gloved hand instead of a sleeve, and she carried a water bucket to the waiting refugees. Laral didn’t walk like a servant though. There was a certain … determination about the young woman that no forced subservience could smother. The end of the world seemed roughly as bothersome to her as a poor harvest once had.

She paused by Lirin and offered him a drink—taken from her waterskin and poured into a fresh cup as he insisted, rather than ladled straight from the bucket.

“He’s three down,” Laral whispered as Lirin sipped.

Lirin grunted.

“Shorter than I expected him to be,” Laral noted. “He’s supposed to be a great general, leader of the Herdazian resistance. He looks more like a traveling merchant.”

“Genius comes in all shapes, Laral,” Lirin said, waving for her to refill his cup to give an excuse for them to keep talking.

“Still…” she said, then fell silent as Durnash passed by, a tall parshman with marbled black and red skin, a sword on his back. Once he was well on his way, she continued softly, “I’m honestly surprised at you, Lirin. Not once have you suggested we turn in this hidden general.”

“He’d be executed,” Lirin said.

“You think of him as a criminal though, don’t you?”

“He bears a terrible responsibility; he perpetuated a war against an overwhelming enemy force. He threw away the lives of his men in a hopeless battle.”

“Some would call that heroism.”

“Heroism is a myth you tell idealistic young people—specifically when you want them to go bleed for you. It got one of my sons killed and another taken from me. You can keep your heroism and return to me the lives of those wasted on foolish conflicts.”

At least it seemed to almost be over. Now that the resistance in Herdaz had finally collapsed, hopefully the refugee flood would slow.

Laral watched him with pale green eyes. She was a keen one. How he wished life had gone in another direction, that old Wistiow had held on a few more years. Lirin might call this woman daughter, and might have both Tien and Kaladin beside him now, working as surgeons.

“I won’t turn in the Herdazian general,” Lirin said. “Stop looking at me like that. I hate war, but I won’t condemn your hero.”

“And your son will come fetch him soon?”

“We’ve sent Kal word. That should be enough. Make sure your husband is ready with his distraction.”

She nodded and moved on to offer water to the parshman guards at the town entrance. Lirin got through the next few refugees quickly, then reached a group of cloaked figures. He calmed himself with the quick breathing exercise his master had taught him in the surgery room all those years ago. Although his insides were a storm, Lirin’s hands didn’t shake as he waved forward the cloaked figures.

“I will need to do an examination,” Lirin said softly, “so it doesn’t seem unusual when I pull you out of the line.”

“Begin with me,” said the shortest of the men. The other four shifted their positions, placing themselves carefully around him.

“Don’t look so much like you’re guarding him, you sodden fools,” Lirin hissed. “Here, sit down on the ground. Maybe you’ll seem less like a gang of thugs that way.”

They did as requested, and Lirin pulled over his stool beside the apparent leader. He bore a thin, silvered mustache on his upper lip, and was perhaps in his fifties. His sun-leathered skin was darker than most Herdazians’; he could almost have passed for Azish. His eyes were a deep dark brown.

“You’re him?” Lirin whispered as he put his ear to the man’s chest to check his heartbeat.

“I am,” the man said.

Dieno enne Calah. Dieno “the Mink” in Old Herdazian. Hesina had explained that enne was an honorific that implied greatness.

One might have expected the Mink—as Laral apparently had—to be a brutal warrior forged on the same anvil as men like Dalinar Kholin or Meridas Amaram. Lirin, however, knew that killers came in all kinds of packages. The Mink might be short and missing a tooth, but there was a power to his lean build, and Lirin spotted not a few scars in his examination. Those around the wrists, in fact … those were the scars manacles made on the skin of slaves.

“Thank you,” Dieno whispered, “for offering us refuge.”

“It wasn’t my choice,” Lirin said.

“Still, you ensure that the resistance will escape to live on. Heralds bless you, surgeon.”

Lirin dug out a bandage, then began wrapping a wound on the man’s arm that hadn’t been seen to properly. “The Heralds bless us with a quick end to this conflict.”

“Yes, with the invaders sent running all the way back to Damnation from which they were spawned.”

Lirin continued his work.

“You … disagree, surgeon?”

“Your resistance has failed, General,” Lirin said, pulling the bandage tight. “Your kingdom has fallen like my own. Further conflict will only leave more men dead.”

“Surely you don’t intend to obey these monsters.”

“I obey the person who holds the sword to my neck, General,” Lirin said. “Same as I always have.”

He finished his work, then gave the general’s four companions cursory examinations. No women. How would the general read messages sent to him?

Lirin made a show of discovering a wound on one man’s leg, and—with a little coaching—the man limped on it properly, then let out a painful howl. A poke of a needle made painspren claw up from the ground, shaped like little orange hands.

“That will need surgery,” Lirin said loudly. “Or you might lose the leg. No, no complaints. We’re going to see to that right away.”

He had Aric fetch a litter. Positioning the other four soldiers—the general included—as bearers for that litter gave Lirin an excuse to pull them all out of line.

Now they just needed the distraction. It came in the form of Toralin Roshone: Laral’s husband, former citylord. He stumbled out of the fog-shrouded town, wobbling and walking unsteadily.

Lirin waved to the Mink and his soldiers, slowly leading them toward the inspection post. “You aren’t armed, are you?” he hissed under his breath.

“We left obvious weapons behind,” the Mink replied, “but it will be my face—and not our arms—that betrays us.”

“We’ve prepared for that.” Pray to the Almighty it works.

As Lirin drew near, he could better make out Roshone. The former citylord’s cheeks hung in deflated jowls, still reflecting the weight he’d lost following his son’s death seven years ago. Roshone had been ordered to shave his beard, perhaps because he’d been fond of it, and he no longer wore his proud warrior’s takama. That had been replaced by the kneepads and short trousers of a crem scraper.

He carried a stool under one arm and muttered in a slurred voice, his wooden peg of a foot scraping stone as he walked. Lirin honestly couldn’t tell if Roshone had gotten drunk for the display, or if he was faking. The man drew attention either way. The parshmen manning the inspection post nudged one another, and one hummed to an upbeat rhythm—something they often did when amused.

Roshone picked a building nearby and set down his stool, then—to the delight of the watching parshmen—tried stepping up on it, but missed and stumbled, teetering on his peg, nearly falling.

They loved watching him. Every one of these newly born singers had been owned by one wealthy lighteyes or another. Watching a former citylord reduced to a stumbling drunk who spent his days doing the most menial of jobs? To them it was more captivating than any storyteller’s performance.

Lirin stepped up to the guard post. “This one needs immediate surgery,” he said, gesturing to the man in the litter. “If I don’t get to him now, he might lose a limb. My wife will have the rest of the refugees sit and wait for my return.”

Of the three parshmen assigned as inspectors, only Dor bothered to check the “wounded” man’s face against the drawings. The Mink was top of the list of dangerous refugees, but Dor didn’t spare a glance for the litter bearers. Lirin had noticed the oddity a few days earlier: when he used refugees from the line as labor, the inspectors often fixated solely on the person in the litter.

He’d hoped that with Roshone to provide entertainment, the parshmen would be even more lax. Still, Lirin felt himself sweating as Dor hesitated on one of the pictures. Lirin’s letter—returned with the scout who had arrived begging for asylum—had warned the Mink to bring only low-level guards who wouldn’t be on the lists. Could it—

The other two parshmen laughed at Roshone, who was trying—despite his drunkenness—to reach the roof of the building and scrape away the crem buildup there. Dor turned and joined them, absently waving Lirin forward.

Lirin shared a brief glance with his wife, who waited nearby. It was a good thing none of the parshmen were facing her, because she was pale as a Shin woman. Lirin probably didn’t look much better, but he held in his sigh of relief as he led the Mink and his soldiers forward. He could sequester them in the surgery room, away from the public eye until—

“Everyone stop what you’re doing!” a female voice shouted from behind. “Prepare to give deference!”

Lirin felt an immediate urge to bolt. He almost did, but the soldiers simply kept walking at a regular pace. Yes. Pretend that you hadn’t heard.

“You, surgeon!” the voice shouted at him. It was Abiajan. Reluctantly Lirin halted, excuses running through his mind. Would she believe he hadn’t recognized the Mink? Lirin was already in rough winds with the citylady after insisting on treating Jeber’s wounds after the fool had gotten himself strung up and whipped.

Lirin turned around, trying hard to calm his nerves. Abiajan hurried up, and although singers didn’t blush, she was clearly flustered. When she spoke, her words had adopted a staccato cadence. “Attend me. We have a visitor.”

It took Lirin a moment to process the words. She wasn’t demanding an explanation. This was about … something else?

“What’s wrong, Brightness?” he asked.

Nearby, the Mink and his soldiers stopped, but Lirin could see their arms shifting beneath their cloaks. They’d said they’d left behind “obvious” weapons. Almighty help him, if this turned bloody …

“Nothing’s wrong,” Abiajan said, speaking quickly. “We’ve been blessed. Attend me.” She looked to Dor and the inspectors. “Pass the word. Nobody is to enter or leave the town until I give word otherwise.”

“Brightness,” Lirin said, gesturing toward the man in the litter. “This man’s wound may not appear dire, but I’m certain that if I don’t tend to it immediately, he—”

“It will wait.” She pointed to the Mink and his men. “You five, wait. Everyone just wait. All right. Wait and … and you, surgeon, come with me.”

She strode away, expecting Lirin to follow. He met the Mink’s eyes and nodded for him to wait, then hurried after the citylady. What could have put her so out of sorts? She’d been practicing a regal air, but had now abandoned it completely.

Lirin crossed the field outside of town, walking alongside the line of refugees, and soon found his answer. A hulking figure easily seven feet tall emerged from the fog, accompanied by a small squad of parshmen with weapons. The dreadful creature had a beard and long hair the color of dried blood, and it seemed to meld with his simple wrap of clothing—as if he wore his hair itself for a covering. He had a pure black skin coloring, with lines of marbled red under his eyes.

Most importantly, he had a jagged carapace unlike any Lirin had seen, with a strange pair of carapace fins—or horns—rising above his ears.

The creature’s eyes glowed a soft red. One of the Fused. Here in Hearthstone.

It had been months since Lirin had seen one—and that had been only in passing as a small group had stopped on the way to the battlefront in Herdaz. That group had soared through the air in breezy robes, bearing long spears. They had evoked an ethereal beauty, but the carapace on this creature looked far more wicked—like something one might expect to have come from Damnation.

The Fused spoke in a rhythmic language to a smaller figure at his side, a warform parshwoman. Singer, Lirin told himself. Not parshwoman. Use the right term even in your head, so you don’t slip when speaking.

The warform stepped forward to translate for the Fused. From what Lirin had heard, even those Fused who spoke Alethi often used interpreters, as if speaking human tongues were beneath them.

“You,” the interpreter said to Lirin, “are the surgeon? You’ve been inspecting the people today?”

“Yes,” Lirin said.

The Fused replied, and again the interpreter translated. “We are searching for a spy. He might be hidden among these refugees.”

Lirin felt his mouth go dry. The thing standing above him was a nightmare that should have remained a legend, a demon whispered of around the midnight fire. When Lirin tried to speak, the words wouldn’t come out, and he had to cough to clear his throat.

At a barked order from the Fused, the soldiers with him spread out to the waiting line. The refugees backed away, and several tried to run, but the parshmen—though small beside the Fused—were warforms, with powerful strength and terrible speed. They caught runners while others began searching through the line, throwing back hoods and inspecting faces.

Don’t look behind you at the Mink, Lirin. Don’t seem nervous.

“We…” Lirin said. “We inspect each person, comparing them to the drawings given us. I promise you. We’ve been watchful! No need to terrorize these poor refugees.”

The interpreter didn’t translate Lirin’s words for the Fused, but the creature spoke immediately in its own language.

“The one we seek is not on those lists,” the interpreter said. “He is a young man, a spy of the most dangerous kind. He would be fit and strong compared to these refugees, though he might have feigned weakness.”

“That … that could describe any number of people,” Lirin said. Could he be in luck? Could this be a coincidence? It might not be about the Mink at all. Lirin felt a moment of hope, like sunlight peeking through stormclouds.

“You would remember this man,” the interpreter continued. “Tall for a human, with wavy black hair worn to the shoulders. Clean shaven, he has a slave’s brand on his forehead. Including the glyph shash.”

Slave’s brand.

Shash. Dangerous.

Oh no …

Nearby, one of the Fused’s soldiers threw back the hood of another cloaked refugee—revealing a face that should have been intimately familiar to Lirin. Yet the harsh man Kaladin had become looked like a crude drawing of the sensitive youth Lirin remembered.

Kaladin immediately burst alight with power. Death had come to visit Hearthstone today, despite Lirin’s every effort.