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“Can we go inside?” Dalinar asked as they approached.
You may, the Stormfather said. I cannot go inside, just as I cannot infuse spheres indoors. When a piece splits off, it is no longer me. You will need to quickly rejoin, or the vision will end.
Dalinar picked the lowest accessible balcony in the tower’s east-jutting lobes, up on the fourth tier, and lowered himself until he was right on target. As the storm passed, he soared in through the open balcony into the quiet hallway beyond.
It was over too swiftly. A rush through a dark hallway until he found the southern diagonal corridor, where he tried to reach the ground floor, but Dalinar was suddenly pulled out another balcony without having seen any signs of life. The stormwall passed by to crest the mountains and continue on toward Azir and his body.
“No,” Dalinar said. “We need to look again.”
You must continue forward. Momentum, Dalinar.
“Momentum kept me doing terrible things, Stormfather. Momentum alone is not a virtue.”
We cannot do what you ask.
“Stop making excuses and try for once!” Dalinar said, provoking lightning around him. He resisted the push to continue at the front and—though it caused the Stormfather to groan with fits of thunder—Dalinar moved into the inner portions of the storm. The black chaos behind the stormwall.
He was wind blowing against wind, a man swimming against a tide, but he pushed all the way back to Urithiru. The Stormfather grumbled, but Dalinar didn’t sense pain from the spren. Just … surprise. As if the Stormfather were genuinely curious about what Dalinar had managed to do.
It was difficult to stay in place, but he hovered outside the first tier, searching for anything alarming. The fury of the wind tugged at him. The Stormfather rumbled, and lightning flashed.
There. Dalinar felt something. A … faint Connection, like when he learned someone’s language. His Surgebinding, his powers, drew him through the wind around the outside base of the tower—until he found something remarkable. A single figure, almost invisible in the darkness, clinging to the outside of the tower on the eighth level.
Kaladin Stormblessed.
Dalinar could not fathom what had brought the Windrunner to expose himself like this in a storm, but here he was. Holding on tightly to a ledge. His clothing was ragged, and he was wounded—bleeding from numerous cuts.
“Blood of my fathers,” Dalinar whispered. “Stormfather, do you see him?”
I … feel him, the Stormfather said. Through you. He seems to be waiting for the center of the storm, where his spheres and Stormlight will renew.
Dalinar drew close to the young man, who had buried his head into his shoulder for protection. He was soaked through, a piece of his shirt slapping against the stone over and over.
“Kaladin?” Dalinar shouted. “Kaladin, what has happened?”
The young man didn’t move. Dalinar calmed himself, resisting the furious winds, and drew power from the soul of the storm.
KALADIN, he said.
Kaladin shifted, turning his head. His skin had gone pale, his hair matted and whipped into rain-drenched knots. Storms … he looked like a dead man.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED? Dalinar demanded as the storm.
“Singer invasion,” Kaladin whispered into the wind. “Navani captured. The tower on lockdown. Other Radiants are all unconscious.”
I WILL FIND HELP.
“Radiant powers don’t work. Except mine. Maybe those of a Bondsmith. I’m fighting. I’m … trying.”
LIFE BEFORE DEATH.
“Life…” Kaladin whispered. “Life … before…” The man’s eyes fluttered closed. He sagged, going limp, and dropped off the wall, unconscious.
NO. Dalinar gathered the winds, and with a surge of strength, used them to hurl Kaladin up and over the ledge of the balcony, onto the eighth floor of the tower.
That strained his abilities, and at last the tide grabbed Dalinar and forced him toward the front of the storm. As it happened, he was ejected from the vision and found himself in Emul, sitting in his chair. An honor guard of soldiers had arrived, forming a circle around him so people couldn’t gawk. Though it had been a long time since Dalinar had been taken involuntarily in a vision, he appreciated the gesture.
He shook himself, rising to stand. Nearby, Martra held up her notebook. “I wrote down everything you said and did! Like Brightness Navani used to. Did I do it right?”
“Thank you,” Dalinar said, scanning what she’d written. It seemed he had spoken out loud, like when in one of the old visions. Only, Martra hadn’t heard the parts where he’d spoken as the storm.
One of the guards coughed, and Dalinar noticed one of the others gawking at him. The youth turned away immediately, blushing.
Because I was reading, Dalinar thought, handing back the notebook. He looked at the sky, expecting to see stormclouds—though here the highstorm would still be hours away from this region.
Stormfather, he thought. The tower was invaded. Our worst fears are confirmed. The enemy controls Urithiru. Storms, that felt painful to acknowledge. First Alethkar, then the tower? And Navani captured?
Now he knew why the enemy had thrown away Taravangian. Maybe even the entire army here in Emul. They’d been sacrificed to keep Dalinar occupied.
“Go to Teshav,” Dalinar said to Martra. “Have her gather the monarchs and my highlords. I need to call an emergency meeting. Cancel everything else I was to do today.”
The young woman yelped, perhaps at being given such an important task. She ran on his orders immediately. The soldiers parted at Dalinar’s request, and he looked toward the sky again.
Stormfather, did you hear me?
You have hurt me, Dalinar. This is the second time you have done so. You push against our bond, forcing me to do things that are not right.
I push you to stretch, Dalinar said. That is always painful. Did you hear what Stormblessed told me?
Yes, he said. But he is wrong. Your powers will not work at Urithiru. It seems … they have turned the tower’s protections against us. If that is true, you would need to be orders of magnitude stronger, more experienced than you are, to open a perpendicularity there. You’d have to be strong enough to overwhelm the Sibling.
I need to say more oaths, Dalinar said. I need to better understand what I can do. My training goes too slowly. We need to find a way to speed it up.
I cannot help you. Honor is dead. He was the only one who knew what you could do, in full. He was the only one that could have trained you.
Dalinar growled in frustration. He began to pace the unworked stone in front of his warcamp house.
Kaladin, Shallan, Jasnah, Lift … all of them picked up on their powers naturally, Dalinar said. But here I am, many months after our Bonding, and I have barely progressed.
You are something different from them, the Stormfather replied. Something greater, more dangerous. But also more complicated. There has never been another like you.
Distant thunder. Drawing closer.
Except … the Stormfather said.
Dalinar looked up as a thought struck him. Likely the same one that had occurred to the Stormfather.
There was another Bondsmith.
* * *
A short time later, an out-of-breath Dalinar arrived at a small building in the far northern part of the camp. People raced about, preparing for the imminent storm, but he ignored them. Instead he burst into the small building, surprising a woman tending to a hulking man seated on the floor, bent forward, muttering to himself.
