Next, let the spren inspect your trap. The gemstone must not be fully infused, but also cannot be fully dun. Experiments have concluded that seventy percent of maximum Stormlight capacity works best.

If you have done your work correctly, the spren will become fascinated by its soon-to-be prison. It will dance around the stone, peek at it, float around it.

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

“I told you we’d been spotted,” Syl said as Kaladin flared with Stormlight.

Kaladin grunted in reply. Syl formed into a majestic silvery spear as he swept his hand outward—the weapon’s appearance forcing back the singers who had been searching for him. Kaladin pointedly avoided looking at his father, to not betray their relationship. Besides, he knew what he would see. Disappointment.

So, nothing new.

Refugees scrambled away in a panic, but the Fused no longer cared about them. The hulking figure turned toward Kaladin, arms folded, and smiled.

I told you, Syl said in Kaladin’s mind. I’m going to keep reminding you until you acknowledge how intelligent I am.

“This is a new variety,” Kaladin said, keeping his spear leveled at the Fused. “You ever seen one of these before?”

No. Seems uglier than most though.

Over the last year, new varieties of Fused had been appearing on the battlefields in a trickle. Kaladin was most familiar with the ones who could fly like Windrunners. Those were called the shanay-im, they’d learned; it roughly meant “Those Ones of the Heavens.”

Other Fused could not fly; as with the Radiants, each type had their own set of powers. Jasnah posited there would be ten varieties, though Dalinar—offering no explanation of why he knew this—said there would be only nine.

This variety marked the seventh Kaladin had fought. And, winds willing, the seventh he would kill. Kaladin raised his spear to challenge the Fused to single combat, an action that always worked with the Heavenly Ones. This Fused, however, waved for his companions to strike at Kaladin from all sides.

Kaladin responded by Lashing himself upward. As he darted into the sky, Syl automatically lengthened her shape into a long lance ideal for striking at ground objects from the air. Stormlight churned inside Kaladin, daring him to move, to act, to fight. But he needed to be careful. There were civilians in the area, including several very dear to him.

“Let’s see if we can draw them away,” Kaladin said. He Lashed himself downward at an angle so he swooped backward toward the ground. Unfortunately, the fog kept Kaladin from going too far or too high, lest he lose sight of his enemies.

Be careful, Syl said. We don’t know what kinds of powers this new Fused might—

The fog-shrouded figure in the near distance collapsed suddenly, and something shot out of the body—a small line of red-violet light like a spren. That line of light darted to Kaladin in the blink of an eye, then it expanded to re-form the shape of the Fused with a sound like stretching leather mixed with grinding stone.

The Fused appeared in the air right in front of Kaladin. Before Kaladin could react, the Fused had grabbed him by the throat with one hand and by the front of the uniform with another.

Syl yelped, fuzzing to mist—her lance form was far too unwieldy for such a close-quarters fight. The weight of the enormous Fused, with his stony carapace and thick muscles, dragged Kaladin out of the air and slammed him against the ground, flat on his back.

The Fused’s constricting fingers cut off Kaladin’s airflow, but with Stormlight raging inside him, Kaladin didn’t need to breathe. Still, he grabbed the Fused’s hands to pry them free. Stormfather! The creature was strong. Moving his fingers was like trying to bend steel. Shrugging off the initial panic of being yanked out of the air, Kaladin gathered his wits and summoned Syl as a dagger. He sliced the Fused’s right hand, then his left, leaving the fingers dead.

Those would heal—the Fused, like Radiants, used Light to repair their wounds. But with the creature’s fingers dead, Kaladin kicked free with a grunt. He Lashed himself upward again, soaring into the air. Before he could catch his breath, however, a red-violet light streaked through the fog below, looping about itself and zipping up behind Kaladin.

A viselike arm grabbed him in an arm triangle from behind. A second later, a piercing pain stabbed Kaladin between the shoulders as the Fused knifed him in the neck.

Kaladin screamed and felt his limbs go numb as his spinal cord was severed. His Stormlight rushed to heal the wound, but this Fused was plainly experienced at fighting Surgebinders, because he continued to plunge the knife into Kaladin’s neck time and time again, keeping him from recovering.

“Kaladin!” Syl said, flitting around him. “Kaladin! What should I do?” She formed into a shield in his hand, but his limp fingers dropped her, and she returned to her spren form.

The Fused’s moves were expert, precise as he hung on from behind—he didn’t seem to be able to fly when in humanoid shape, only as a ribbon of light. Kaladin felt hot breath on his cheek as the creature stabbed again and again. The part of Kaladin trained by his father considered the wound analytically. Severing of the spine. Repeated infliction of full paralysis. A clever way of dealing with an enemy who could heal. Kaladin’s Stormlight would run out quickly at this rate.

The soldier in Kaladin worked more by instinct than deliberate thought, and noticed—despite spinning in the air, grappled by a terrible enemy—that he regained a single moment of mobility before each new stab. So as the tingling feeling rushed through his body, Kaladin bent forward, then slammed his head back into that of the Fused.

A flash of pain and white light disrupted Kaladin’s sight. He twisted as he felt the Fused’s grip slacken, then drop. The creature seized Kaladin by his coat, hanging on—a mere shadow to Kaladin’s swimming vision. That was enough. Kaladin swept his hand at the thing’s neck, Syl forming as a side sword. Cut through the gemheart, the head, or the neck with a Blade, and—great powers notwithstanding—the Fused would die.

Kaladin’s vision recovered enough to let him see a violet-red light burst from the chest of the Fused. He left a body behind each time his soul—or whatever—became a ribbon of red light. Kaladin’s Blade sliced the body’s head clean off, but the light had already escaped.

Stormwinds. This thing seemed more spren than singer. The discarded body tumbled through the fog, and Kaladin followed it down, his wounds fully healing. He breathed in a second pouch of spheres as he landed beside the fallen corpse. Could he even kill this being? A Shardblade could cut spren, but that didn’t kill them. They re-formed eventually.

Sweat poured down Kaladin’s face, his heart thundering inside him. Though Stormlight urged him to move, he stilled himself and watched the fog, searching for signs of the Fused. They’d gotten far enough from the city that he couldn’t see anyone else. Just shadowed hills. Empty.

Storms. That was close. As close to death as he’d come in a long, long while. Made all the more alarming by how quickly and unexpectedly the Fused had taken him. There was a danger to feeling like he owned the winds and the sky, to knowing he could heal quickly.

Kaladin turned around slowly, feeling the breeze on his skin. Carefully, he walked over to the lump that remained of the Fused. The corpse—or whatever it was—looked dried out and fragile, the colors faded, like the shell of a snail long dead. The flesh had turned into some kind of stone, porous and light. Kaladin picked up the decapitated head and pressed his thumb into the face, which crumbled like ash. The rest of the body followed on its own a few moments later, then even the carapace disintegrated.

A line of violet-red light came streaking in from the side. Kaladin immediately launched himself upward, narrowly avoiding the grasp of the Fused that formed from the light beneath him. The creature, however, immediately dropped the new body and shot upward after Kaladin as a light. This time Kaladin dodged a little too slowly, and the creature—forming from the light—seized him by the leg.

The Fused heaved upward, using his powerful upper-body strength to climb Kaladin’s uniform. By the time the Sylblade formed in Kaladin’s hands, the Fused had him in a powerful grip—legs wrapped around his torso, left hand grabbing Kaladin’s sword hand and holding it out to the side while he shoved his right forearm into Kaladin’s throat. That forced his head up, making it difficult to see the Fused, let alone get leverage against him.

He didn’t need leverage, however. Grappling with a Windrunner was a dangerous prospect, for whatever Kaladin could touch, he could Lash. He poured Light into his enemy to Lash the creature away. The Light resisted, as it did when applied to Fused, but Kaladin had enough to push through the resistance.

Kaladin Lashed himself in the other direction, and it soon felt like enormous hands were pulling the two of them apart. The Fused grunted, then said something in his own language. Kaladin dropped the Sylblade and focused on trying to push the enemy away. The Fused was glowing with Stormlight now; it rose off him like luminescent smoke.

Finally the enemy’s grip slipped, then he shot away from Kaladin like an arrow from a Shardbow. A fraction of a second later, that relentless red-violet light darted from the chest and headed straight for Kaladin yet again.

Kaladin narrowly avoided it, Lashing himself downward as the Fused formed and reached for him. After missing, the Fused fell through the mists, vanishing. Again Kaladin found himself low on Stormlight, his heart racing. He breathed in his third—of four—pouch of spheres. They’d learned to start wearing those sewn into the inside of their uniforms. Fused knew to try to cut away a Radiant’s sphere reserve.

“Wow,” Syl said, hovering up beside Kaladin, naturally taking a position where she could watch behind him. “He’s good, isn’t he?”

“It’s more than that,” Kaladin said, scanning the featureless fog. “He’s attacking with a different strategy than most. I haven’t done a lot of grappling.”

Wrestling wasn’t often seen on the battlefield. At least not a disciplined one. Kaladin was practiced with formations, and was growing more confident with swordplay, but it had been years since he’d trained on how to escape a headlock.

“Where is he?” Syl asked.

“I don’t know,” Kaladin said. “But we don’t have to beat him. We only need to stay out of his grasp long enough for the others to arrive.”

It took a few minutes of watching before Syl cried out. “There!” she said, forming a ribbon of light pointing the way toward what she’d seen.

Kaladin didn’t wait for further explanation. He Lashed himself away through the fog. The Fused appeared, but grasped empty air as Kaladin dodged. The creature’s body fell as the line of light ejected again, but Kaladin began an erratic zigzag pattern, evading the Fused twice more.

This creature used Voidlight to form new bodies somehow. Each one looked identical, with hair as a kind of clothing. He wasn’t being reborn each time—he was teleporting, but using the ribbon of light to transfer between locations. They’d met Fused that could fly, and others that had powers like Lightweavers. Perhaps this was the variety whose powers mirrored, in a way, the traveling abilities of Elsecallers.

After the creature materialized the third time, he again briefly gave up the chase. He can teleport only three times before he needs to rest, Kaladin guessed. He attacked in a burst of three each time. So after that, his powers need to regenerate? Or … no, he probably needs to go somewhere and fetch more Voidlight.

Indeed, a few minutes later, the red-violet light returned. Kaladin Lashed himself directly away from the light, picking up speed. Air became a roar around him, and by the fifth Lashing, he was fast enough that the red light couldn’t keep up, and dwindled behind.

Not quite so dangerous if you can’t reach me, are you? Kaladin thought. The Fused evidently came to the same conclusion, the ribbon of light diving downward through the fog.

Unfortunately, the Fused probably knew Kaladin intended to return to Hearthstone. So, instead of continuing, Kaladin flew down as well. He came to rest on a hilltop overgrown with lumpish rockbuds, their vines spilling out liberally in the humidity.

The Fused stood at the bottom of the hill, looking up. Yes … that dark brown wrap he wore was hair, from the top of his head, wound long and tight around his body. He broke a carapace spur off his arm—a sharp and jagged weapon—and pointed it toward Kaladin. He had probably used one of those as a dagger when attacking Kaladin’s back.

Both spur and hair seemed to imply he couldn’t take objects with him when teleporting—so he couldn’t keep Voidlight spheres on his person, but had to retreat to refill.

Syl formed as a spear. “I’m ready,” Kaladin called. “Come at me.”

“So you can run?” the Fused called in Alethi, his voice rough, like stones grinding together. “Watch for me from the corner of your eye, Windrunner. We’ll meet again soon.” He became a ribbon of red light—leaving another crumbling corpse as he disappeared into the fog.

Kaladin sat down and let out a long breath, Stormlight puffing in front of him and mingling with the fog. That fog would burn away as the sun rose higher, but for now it still blanketed the land, making it feel eerie and forlorn. Like he had accidentally stepped into a dream.

Kaladin was hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion. The dull sense of Stormlight running out, mixed with the usual deflation after a battle. And something more. Something increasingly common these days.

His spear vanished and Syl reappeared, standing in the air in front of him. She’d taken to wearing a stylish dress, ankle-length and sleek, instead of the filmy girlish one. When he’d asked, she’d explained that Adolin had been advising her. Her long, blue-white hair faded to mist, and she didn’t wear a safehand sleeve. Why would she? She wasn’t human, let alone Vorin.

“Well,” she said, hands on hips, “we showed him.”

“He almost killed me twice.”

“I didn’t say what we showed him.” She turned around, keeping watch in case this was a trick. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” Kaladin said.

“You look tired.”

“You always say that.”

“Because you always look tired, dummy.”

He climbed to his feet. “I’ll be fine once I get moving.”

“You—”

“We are not going to argue about this again. I’m fine.”

Indeed, he felt better when he got up and drew in a little more Stormlight. So what if the sleepless nights had returned? He’d survived on less sleep before. The slave Kaladin had been would have laughed himself silly to hear that this new Kaladin—lighteyed Shardbearer, a man who enjoyed luxurious housing and warm meals—was upset about a little lost sleep.

“Come on,” he said. “If we were spotted on our way here—”

“If?”

“—because we were spotted, they’ll send more than just one Fused. Heavenly Ones will come for me, and that means the mission is in jeopardy. Let’s get back to the town.”

She waited expectantly, her arms folded.

“Fine,” Kaladin said. “You were right.”

“And you should listen to me more.”

“And I should listen to you more.”

“And therefore you should get more sleep.”

“Would that it were so easy,” Kaladin said, rising into the air. “Come on.”

*   *   *

Veil was growing increasingly upset that nobody had kidnapped her.

She strolled through the warcamp market, in full disguise, idling by shops. She’d spent more than a month wearing a fake face out here, making exactly the right comments to exactly the right people. And still no kidnapping. She hadn’t even been mugged. What was the world coming to?

I could punch us in the face, Radiant noted, if it would make you feel better.

Levity, from Radiant? Veil smiled as she pretended to browse a fruit stand. If Radiant was cracking jokes, they really were getting desperate. Usually Radiant was as funny as … as …

Usually Radiant is as lighthearted as a chasmfiend, Shallan offered, bleeding to the front of their personality. One with a particularly large emerald inside …

Yes, that. Veil smiled at the warmth that came from Shallan, and even Radiant, who was coming to enjoy humor. This last year, the three of them had settled into a comfortable balance. They weren’t as separate as they’d been, and swapped personas easily.

Things seemed to be going so well. That made Veil worry, of course. Were they going too well?

Never mind that, for now. She moved on from the fruit stand. She’d spent this month in the warcamps wearing the face of a woman named Chanasha: a lowborn lighteyed merchant who had found modest success hiring out her chull teams to caravans crossing the Shattered Plains. They’d bribed the real woman to lend her face to Veil, and she now resided in a secure location.

Veil turned a corner and strolled down another street. The Sadeas warcamp was much as she remembered it from her days living in these camps—though it was somehow even rougher. The road needed a good scraping; rockbud polyps caused nearby wagons to rattle and bump as they passed. Most of the stalls had a guard prominently stationed near the goods. This wasn’t the sort of place where you trusted the local soldiers to police for you.

She passed more than a few luckmerches, selling glyphwards or other charms against the dangerous times. Stormwardens trying to sell lists of coming storms and their dates. She ignored these and moved on to a specific shop, one that carried sturdy boots and hiking shoes. That was what sold well in the warcamps these days. Many customers were travelers passing through. A quick survey of the other merchants would tell the same story. Rations that would keep for a long trip. Repair shops for wagons or carts. And, of course, anything that wasn’t reputable enough to have a place at Urithiru.

There were also numerous slave pens. Nearly as many as there were brothels. Once the bulk of the civilians moved to Urithiru, all ten warcamps quickly became a seedy stopover for caravans.

At Radiant’s prompting, Veil covertly checked over her shoulder for Adolin’s soldiers. They were well out of sight. Good. She did spot Pattern watching from a wall nearby, ready to report to Adolin if needed.

All was in place, and their intelligence indicated her kidnapping should happen today. Maybe she needed to prod a little more.

The shoe merchant finally approached her—a stout fellow who had a beard striped with white. With that contrast, Shallan had an urge to draw him, so Veil stepped back and let Shallan emerge to take a Memory of him for her collection.

“Is there anything that interests you, Brightness?” he asked.

Veil emerged again. “How quickly could you get a hundred pairs of these?” she asked, tapping one of the shoes with a reed Chanasha always carried in her pocket.

“A hundred pairs?” the man asked, perking up. “Not long, Brightness. Four days, if my next shipment arrives on time.”

“Excellent,” she said. “I have a special contact with old Kholin at his silly tower, and can unload a large number if you can get them to me. I’ll need a bulk discount, of course.”

“Bulk discount?” the man said.

She swiped her reed in the air. “Yes, naturally. If you want to use my contacts to sell to Urithiru, I’ll need to have the very best deal.”

He rubbed at that beard of his. “You’re … Chanasha Hasareh, aren’t you? I’ve heard of you.”

“Good. You’ll know I don’t play games.” She leaned in and poked him in the chest with her reed. “I’ve got a way past old Kholin’s tariffs, if we move quickly. Four days. Any way you can make it three?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But I am a law-abiding man, Brightness. Why … it would be illegal to avoid tariffs.”

“Illegal only if we accept that Kholin has authority to demand these tariffs. Last I checked, he wasn’t our king. He can claim whatever he wants, but now that the storms have changed, the Heralds are going to show up and put him in his place. Mark my words.”

Nice work, Radiant thought. That was well handled.

Veil tapped the reed on the boots. “A hundred pairs. Three days. I’ll send a scribe to haggle details before the end of the day. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Chanasha wasn’t the smiling type, so Veil didn’t favor this merchant with one. She tucked her reed into her sleeve and gave him a curt nod before continuing through the market.

You don’t think it was too blatant? Veil asked. That last part about Dalinar not being king felt over the top.

Radiant wasn’t certain—subtlety wasn’t her strong suit—but Shallan approved. They needed to push harder, or she’d never get kidnapped. Even lingering near a dark alleyway—one she knew her marks frequented—drew no attention.

Stifling a sigh, Veil made her way to a winehouse near the market. She’d been coming here for weeks now, and the owners knew her well. Intelligence said they, like the shoe merchant, belonged to the Sons of Honor, the group Veil was hunting.

The serving girl brought Veil inside out of the cool weather to a small, out-of-the-way corner with its own table. Here she could drink in solitude and go over accounts.

Accounts. Blah. She dug them out of her satchel and set them out on the table. The lengths they went to in the name of staying in character. They had to perfectly maintain the illusion, as the real Chanasha never let a day go by without reconciling her accounts. She seemed to find it relaxing.

Fortunately, they had Shallan to handle this part; she had some practice with Sebarial’s accounts. Veil relaxed, letting Shallan take over. And actually, this wasn’t so bad. She did doodles along the sides of the margins as she worked, even if it wasn’t quite in character. Veil acted like it was imperative that they keep absolutely in character at all times, but Shallan knew they needed to relax a little, now and then.

We could relax by visiting the gambling dens … Veil thought.

Part of the reason they had to be so diligent was because these warcamps were a tempting playground for Veil. Gambling without concern for Vorin propriety? Bars that would serve whatever you wanted, no questions asked? The warcamps were a wonderful little storm away from Dalinar Kholin’s perfect seat of honesty.

Urithiru was too full of Windrunners, men and women who would fall over themselves to make sure you didn’t bruise your elbow on a misplaced table. This place, though. Veil could get to like this place. So, maybe it was better that they stayed strictly in character.

Shallan tried to focus on the accounts. She could do these numbers; she’d first trained on accounting when doing her father’s ledgers. That had begun before she …

Before she …

It might be time, Veil whispered. To remember, once and for all. Everything.

No, it was not.

But …

Shallan retreated immediately. No, we can’t think of that. Take control.

Veil sat back in the seat as her wine arrived. Fine. She took a long drink and tried to pretend to be doing ledgers. Honestly, she couldn’t feel anger at Shallan. She channeled it instead toward Ialai Sadeas. That woman couldn’t be content with running a little fiefdom here, making a profit off the caravans and keeping to herself. Oh no. She had to plan storming treason.

And so Veil tried to do ledgers and pretend she liked it. She took another long drink. A short time later her brain started to feel fuzzy, and she almost drew in Stormlight to burn off the effect—but stopped. She hadn’t ordered anything particularly intoxicating. So if she was getting light-headed …

She looked up, her eyes growing unfocused. They’d drugged the wine! Finally, she thought before slumping over in her seat.

*   *   *

“I don’t understand how hard it can be,” Syl was saying as she and Kaladin drew close to Hearthstone. “You humans sleep literally every day. You’ve been practicing it all your lives.”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you,” Kaladin said, landing with a light step right outside town.

“Obviously I would, since I just said so,” she replied, sitting on his shoulder, watching behind them. Her words were lighthearted, but he sensed in her the same tension he felt, like the air itself was stretched and pulled tight.

Watch for me from the corner of your eye, Windrunner. He felt a phantom pain from his neck, where the Fused had plunged his dagger into Kaladin’s spine over and over.

“Even babies can sleep,” Syl said. “Only you could make something so simple into something extremely difficult.”

“Yeah?” Kaladin asked. “And can you do it?”

“Lie down. Pretend to be dead for a while. Get up. Easy. Oh, and since it’s you, I’ll add the mandatory last step: complain.”

Kaladin strode toward the town. Syl would expect a response, but he didn’t feel like giving one. Not out of annoyance, but more … a kind of general fatigue.

“Kaladin?” she asked.

He’d felt a disconnect these last months. These last years … it was as if life for everyone continued, but Kaladin was separate from them, incapable of interacting. Like he was a painting hanging in a hallway, watching life stream past.

“Fine,” Syl said. “I’ll do your part.” Her image fuzzed, and she became a perfect replica of Kaladin, sitting on his own shoulder. “Well well,” she said in a growling, low-pitched voice. “Grumble grumble. Get in line, men. Storming rain, ruining otherwise terrible weather. Also, I’m banning toes.”

“Toes?”

“People keep tripping!” she continued. “I can’t have you all hurting yourselves. So, no toes from now on. Next week we’ll try not having feet. Now, go off and get some food. Tomorrow we’re going to get up before dawn to practice scowling at one another.”

“I’m not that bad,” Kaladin said, but couldn’t help smiling. “Also, your Kaladin voice sounds more like Teft.”

She transformed back and sat primly—clearly pleased with herself. And he had to admit he felt more upbeat. Storms, he thought. Where would I be if I hadn’t found her?

The answer was obvious. He’d be dead at the bottom of a chasm, having leaped into the darkness.

As they approached Hearthstone, they found a scene of relative order. The refugees had been returned to a line, and the warform singers who had come with the Fused waited near Kaladin’s father and the new citylady, their weapons sheathed. Everyone seemed to understand that their next steps would depend greatly upon the results of Kaladin’s duel.

He strode up and seized the air in front of him, the Sylspear forming as a majestic silver weapon. The singers drew their weapons, mostly swords.

“You can fight a Radiant all on your own, if you’d like,” Kaladin said. “Alternatively, if you don’t feel like dying today, you can gather the singers in this town and retreat a half hour’s walk to the east. There’s a stormshelter out that way for people from the outer farms; I’m sure Abiajan can lead you to it. Stay inside until sunset.”

The six soldiers rushed him.

Kaladin sighed, drawing in a few more spheres’ worth of his Stormlight. The skirmish took about thirty seconds, and left one of the singers dead with her eyes burned out while the others retreated, their weapons shorn in half.

Some would have seen bravery in this attack. For much of Alethi history, common soldiers had been encouraged to throw themselves at Shardbearers. Generals taught that the slightest chance of earning a Shard was worth the incredible risk.

That was stupid enough, but Kaladin wouldn’t drop a Shard when killed. He was Radiant, and these soldiers knew it. From what he’d seen, the attitudes of the singer soldiers depended greatly upon the Fused they served. The fact that these had thrown their lives away so wantonly did not speak highly of their master.

Fortunately, the remaining five listened to Abiajan and the other Hearthstone singers who—with some effort—persuaded them that despite fighting bravely, they were now defeated. A short time later, they all went trudging out through the quickly vanishing fog.

Kaladin checked the sky again. Should be close now, he thought as he walked over to the checkpoint where his mother waited, a patterned kerchief over her shoulder-length unbraided hair. She gave Kaladin a side hug, holding little Oroden—who reached out his hands for Kaladin to take him.

“You’re getting tall!” he said to the boy.

“Gagadin!” the child said, then waved in the air, trying to catch Syl—who always chose to appear to Kaladin’s family. She did her usual trick, changing into the shapes of various animals and pouncing around in the air for the child.

“So,” Kaladin’s mother said, “how is Lyn?”

“Does that always have to be your first question?”

“Mother’s prerogative,” Hesina said. “So?”

“She broke up with him,” Syl said, shaped as a tiny glowing axehound. The words seemed odd coming from its mouth. “Right after our last visit.”

“Oh, Kaladin,” his mother said, pulling him into another side hug. “How’s he taking it?”

“He sulked for a good two weeks,” Syl said, “but I think he’s mostly over it.”

“He’s right here,” Kaladin said.

“And he doesn’t ever answer questions about his personal life,” Hesina said. “Forcing his poor mother to turn to other, more divine sources.”

“See,” Syl said, now prancing around as a cremling. “She knows how to treat me. With the dignity and respect I deserve.”

“Has he been disrespecting you again, Syl?”

“It’s been at least a day since he mentioned how great I am.”

“It’s demonstrably unfair that I have to deal with both of you at once,” Kaladin said. “Did that Herdazian general make it to town?”

Hesina gestured toward a nearby building nestled between two homes, one of the wooden sheds for farming equipment. It didn’t appear terribly sturdy; some of the boards had been warped and blown loose by a recent storm.

“I hid them in there once the fighting started,” Hesina explained.

Kaladin handed Oroden to her, then started toward the shed. “Grab Laral and gather the townspeople. Something big is coming today, and I don’t want them to panic.”

“Explain what you mean by ‘big,’ son.”

“You’ll see,” he said.

“Are you going to go talk to your father?”

Kaladin hesitated, then glanced across the foggy field toward the refugees. Townspeople had started to drift out of their homes to see what all the ruckus was about. He couldn’t spot his father. “Where did he go?”

“To check whether that parshman you sliced is actually dead.”

“Of course he did,” Kaladin said with a sigh. “I’ll deal with Lirin later.”

Inside the shed, several very touchy Herdazians pulled daggers on him as he opened the door. In response, he sucked in a little Stormlight, causing wisps of luminescent smoke to rise from his exposed skin.

“By the Three Gods,” whispered one of them, a tall fellow with a ponytail. “It’s true. You’ve returned.”

The reaction disturbed Kaladin. This man, as a freedom fighter in Herdaz, should have seen Radiants before now. In a perfect world, Dalinar’s coalition armies would have been supporting the Herdazian freedom effort for months now.

Only, everyone had given up on Herdaz. The little country had seemed close to collapse, and Dalinar’s armies had been licking their wounds from the Battle of Thaylen Field. Then reports had trickled in of a resistance in Herdaz fighting back. Each report sounded like the Herdazians were nearly finished, and so resources were allocated to more winnable fronts. But each time, Herdaz stood strong, relentlessly harrying the enemy. Odium’s armies lost tens of thousands fighting in that small, strategically unimportant country.

Though Herdaz had eventually fallen, the blood toll exacted on the enemy had been remarkably high.

“Which of you is the Mink?” Kaladin asked, glowing Stormlight puffing out of his mouth as he spoke.

The tall fellow gestured to the rear of the shed, to where a shadowed figure—shrouded in his cloak—had settled against the wall. Kaladin couldn’t make out his face beneath the hood.

“I’m honored to meet the legend himself,” Kaladin said, stepping forward. “I’ve been told to extend you an official invitation to join the coalition army. We will do what we can for your country, but for now Brightlord Dalinar Kholin and Queen Jasnah Kholin are both very eager to meet the man who held against the enemy for so long.”

The Mink didn’t move. He remained seated, his head bowed. Finally, one of his men moved over and shook the man’s shoulder.

The cloak shifted and the body fell limp, exposing rolls of tarps assembled to appear like the figure of a person wearing the cloak. A dummy? What in the Stormfather’s unknown name?

The soldiers seemed equally surprised, though the tall one merely sighed and gave Kaladin a resigned look. “He does this sometimes, Brightlord.”

“Does what? Turns into rags?”

“He sneaks away,” the man explained. “He likes to see if he can do it without us noticing.”

One of the other men cursed in Herdazian as he searched behind nearby barrels, eventually uncovering one of the loose boards. It opened into the shadowed alley between buildings.

“We’ll find him in town somewhere, I’m sure,” the man told Kaladin. “Give us a few minutes to hunt for him.”

“One would think he’d avoid playing games,” Kaladin said, “considering the dangerous situation.”

“You … don’t know our gancho, Brightlord,” the man said. “This is exactly how he treats dangerous situations.”

“He is no like being caught,” another said, shaking his head. “When in danger, he is to vanish.”

“And abandon his men?” Kaladin asked, aghast.

“You don’t survive like the Mink has without learning to wiggle out of situations others could never escape,” the tall Herdazian said. “If we were in danger, he’d try to come back for us. If he couldn’t … well, we’re his guards. Any of us would give our lives so he could escape.”

“Is no like he needs us a lot,” another said. “The Ganlos Riera herself couldn’t catch him!”

“Well, locate him if you can, and pass along my message,” Kaladin said. “We need to be out of this town quickly. I have reason to suspect a larger force of Fused is on its way here.”

The Herdazians saluted him, though that wasn’t necessary for a member of another country’s military. People did odd things around Radiants.

“Well done!” Syl said as he left the shed. “You barely scowled when they called you Brightlord.”

“I am what I am,” Kaladin said, hiking out past his mother, who was now conferring with Laral and Brightlord Roshone. Kaladin spotted his father organizing some of Roshone’s former soldiers, who were trying to corral the refugees. Judging by the smaller line, a few seemed to have run off.

Lirin spotted Kaladin approaching, and his lips tightened. The surgeon was a shorter man—Kaladin got his height from his mother. Lirin stepped away from the group and wiped the sweat from his face and balding head with a handkerchief, then took off his spectacles, polishing them quietly as Kaladin stepped up.

“Father,” Kaladin said.

“I had hoped,” Lirin said softly, “that our message would inspire you to approach covertly.”

“I tried,” Kaladin said. “But the Fused have set up posts all through the land, watching the sky. The fog unexpectedly cleared up near one of those, and I was exposed. I’d hoped they hadn’t seen me, but…” He shrugged.

Lirin put his spectacles back on, and both men knew what he was thinking. Lirin had warned that if Kaladin kept visiting, he would bring death to Hearthstone. Today it had come to the singer who had attacked him. Lirin had covered the corpse with a shroud.

“I’m a soldier, Father,” Kaladin said. “I fight for these people.”

“Any idiot with hands can hold a spear. I trained your hands for something better.”

“I—” Kaladin stopped himself and took a long, deep breath. He heard a distinctive thumping sound in the distance. Finally.

“We can discuss this later,” Kaladin said. “Go pack up any supplies you want to take. Quickly. We need to leave.”

“Leave?” Lirin said. “I’ve told you already. The townspeople need me. I’m not going to abandon them.”

“I know,” Kaladin said, waving toward the sky.

“What are you…” Lirin trailed off as an enormous dark shadow emerged from the fog, a vehicle of incredible size flying slowly through the air. To either side, two dozen Windrunners—glowing bright with Stormlight—soared in formation.

It wasn’t a ship so much as a gigantic floating platform. Awespren formed around Lirin anyway, like rings of blue smoke. Well, the first time Kaladin had seen Navani make the platform float, he’d gaped too.

It passed in front of the sun, casting Kaladin and his father into shade.

“You’ve made it quite clear,” Kaladin said, “that you and Mother won’t abandon the people of Hearthstone. So I arranged to bring them with us.”