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Litima fell still. It was the end of the sequence.
“Thank you, Brightness Litima,” Dalinar said. “That will do.”
The woman bowed her head respectfully. She gathered her youthful ward from the side of the room and they withdrew, leaving the book on the lectern.
That sequence had become one of Dalinar’s favorites. Listening to it often comforted him. Someone else had known, someone else had understood, how he felt. But today, it didn’t bring the solace it usually did. It only reminded him of Adolin’s arguments. None had been things Dalinar hadn’t considered himself, but being confronted with them by someone he trusted had shaken everything. He found himself staring at his maps, smaller copies of those that hung in the Gallery. They had been recreated for him by the royal cartographer, Isasik Shulin.
What if Dalinar’s visions really were just phantasms? He’d often longed for the glory days of Alethkar’s past. Were the visions his mind’s answer to that, a subconscious way of letting himself be a hero, of giving himself justification for doggedly seeking his goals?
A disturbing thought. Looked at another way, those phantom commands to “unify” sounded a great deal like what the Hierocracy had said when it had tried to conquer the world five centuries before.
Dalinar turned from his maps and walked across the room, his booted feet falling on a soft rug. Too nice a rug. He’d spent the better part of his life in one warcamp or another; he’d slept in wagons, stone barracks, and tents pulled tight against the leeward side of stone formations. Compared with that, his present dwelling was practically a mansion. He felt as if he should cast out all of this finery. But what would that accomplish?
He stopped at the lectern and ran his fingers along the thick pages filled with lines in violet ink. He couldn’t read the words, but he could almost feel them, emanating from the page like Stormlight from a sphere. Were the words of this book the cause of his problems? The visions had started several months after he’d first listened to readings from it.
He rested his hand on the cold, ink-filled pages. Their homeland was stressed nearly to breaking, the war was stalled, and suddenly he found himself captivated by the very ideals and myths that had led to his brother’s downfall. This was a time the Alethi needed the Blackthorn, not an old, tired soldier who fancied himself a philosopher.
Blast it all, he thought. I thought I’d figured this out! He closed the leather-bound volume, the spine crackling. He carried it to the bookshelf and returned it to its place.
“Father?” Renarin asked. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I wish there were, son.” Dalinar tapped the spine of the book lightly. “It’s ironic. This book was once considered one of the great masterpieces of political philosophy. Did you know that? Jasnah told me that kings around the world used to study it daily. Now, it is considered borderline blasphemous.”
Renarin gave no reply.
“Regardless,” Dalinar said, walking back to the wall map. “Highprince Aladar refused my offer of an alliance, just as Roion did. Do you have a thought on whom should I approach next?”
“Adolin says we should be far more worried about Sadeas’s ploy to destroy us than we are.”
The room fell silent. Renarin had a habit of doing that, felling conversations like an enemy archer hunting officers on the battlefield.
“Your brother is right to worry,” Dalinar said. “But moving against Sadeas would undermine Alethkar as a kingdom. For the same reason, Sadeas won’t risk acting against us. He’ll see.”
I hope.
Horns suddenly sounded outside, their deep, resounding calls echoing. Dalinar and Renarin froze. Parshendi spotted on the Plains. A second set came. Twenty-third plateau of the second quadrant. Dalinar’s scouts thought the contested plateau close enough for their forces to reach first.
Dalinar dashed across the room, all other thoughts discarded for the moment, his booted feet thumping on the thick rug. He threw open the door and charged down the Stormlight-illuminated hallway.
The war room door was open, and Teleb—highofficer on duty—saluted as Dalinar entered. Teleb was a straight-backed man with light green eyes. He kept his long hair in a braid and had a blue tattoo on his cheek, marking him as an Oldblood. At the side of the room, his wife, Kalami, sat behind a long-legged desk on a high stool. She wore her dark hair with only two small side braids pinned up, the rest hanging down the back of her violet dress to brush the top of the stool. She was a historian of note, and had requested permission to record meetings like this one; she planned to scribe a history of the war.
“Sir,” Teleb said. “A chasmfiend crawled atop the plateau here less than a quarter hour ago.” He pointed to the battle map, which had glyphs marking each plateau. Dalinar stepped up to it, a group of his officers gathering around him.
“How far would you say that is?” Dalinar asked, rubbing his chin.
“Perhaps two hours,” Teleb said, indicating a route one of his men had drawn on the map. “Sir, I think we have a good chance at this one. Brightlord Aladar will have to traverse six unclaimed plateaus to reach the contested area, while we have a nearly direct line. Brightlord Sadeas would have trouble, as he’d have to work his way around several large chasms too wide to cross with bridges. I’ll bet he won’t even try for it.”
Dalinar did, indeed, have the most direct line. He hesitated, though. It had been months since he’d last gone on a plateau run. His attention had been diverted, his troops needed for protecting roadways and patrolling the large markets that had grown up outside the warcamps. And now, Adolin’s questions weighed upon him, pressing him down. It seemed like a terrible time to go out to battle.
No, he thought. No, I need to do this. Winning a plateau skirmish would do much for his troops’ morale, and would help discredit the rumors in camp.
“We march!” Dalinar declared.
A few of the officers whooped in excitement, an extreme show of emotion for the normally reserved Alethi.
“And your son, Brightlord?” Teleb asked. He’d heard of the confrontation between them. Dalinar doubted there was a person in all ten warcamps who hadn’t heard of it.
“Send for him,” Dalinar said firmly. Adolin probably needed this as much as, or more than, Dalinar did.
The officers scattered. Dalinar’s armor bearers entered a moment later. It had only been a few minutes since the horns had sounded, but after six years of fighting, the machine of war ran smoothly when battle called. From outside, he heard the horns’ third set begin, calling his forces to battle.
The armor bearers inspected his boots—checking to be certain the laces were tight—then brought a long padded vest to throw over his uniform. Next, they set the sabatons—armor for his boots—on the floor before him. They encased his boots entirely and had a rough surface on the bottoms that seemed to cling to rock. The interiors glowed with the light of the sapphires in their indented pockets.
Dalinar was reminded of his most recent vision. The Radiant, his armor glowing with glyphs. Modern Shardplate didn’t glow like that. Could his mind have fabricated that detail? Would it have?
No time to consider that now, he thought. He discarded his uncertainties and worries, something he’d learned to do during his first battles as a youth. A warrior needed to be focused. Adolin’s questions would still be waiting for him when he got back. For now, he couldn’t afford self-doubt or uncertainty. It was time to be the Blackthorn.
