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“Never known a man to turn traitor as hard as you did,” Teft called to Moash. “What was it that got you? What made you willing to kill your own?”
“Peace,” Moash said, halting in the middle of the room. “It was peace, Teft.”
“This is peace?” Teft said, gesturing. “Fighting your friends?”
“We’re not fighting. You run like a coward.”
“Every good sergeant is a coward! And proud of it! Someone needs to talk sense to the officers!”
Moash hovered in place, a black stain in the air. Before he could look and see Lift, Phendorana appeared to him, standing a short distance away. Moash glanced toward her sharply. Good, good. Distraction.
Moash, however, casually turned and slashed his Shardblade through the face of a Radiant beneath him. The unconscious woman’s eyes burned and Lift cried out in horror, heaving herself forward to reach the body—as if she could do anything.
Moash glanced at Teft, then raised his Blade toward Lift.
“Fine!” Teft said, striding forward. “Bastard! You want me? Fine! Fight me! I’ll show you who the better man is!”
Moash landed beside the body and walked straight toward Teft. “We both know who the better warrior is, Teft.”
“I didn’t say better warrior, you idiot,” Teft said, lunging in with his knife. The stab was a feint, but Moash knew it. He sidestepped at precisely the right time, and tripped Teft as he tried to turn and swing again.
Teft went down with a grunt. He tried to roll, but Moash landed and kicked him in the side, hard. Something crunched in Teft’s chest. A wound that blossomed with pain and didn’t heal, despite his Stormlight.
Moash loomed overhead and raised his Blade, then swung it down without further comment. Teft dropped his knife—useless against a Blade—and raised his hands. He felt something from Phendorana. A harmony between them.
Teft was forgiven. Teft was forgiven and he was close.
Moash’s Shardblade met something in the air—a phantom spear shaft, barely coalescing between Teft’s hands—and stopped. It threw sparks, but it stopped. Teft gritted his teeth and held on as Moash finally showed an emotion. Surprise. He stumbled back, his eyes wide.
Teft let go, and Phendorana appeared beside him on the ground, puffing from exertion. He felt sweat trickling down his brow. Manifesting her like that—even a little—had been like trying to push an axehound through a keyhole. He wasn’t certain he, or she, could do it a second time.
Best to try something else. Teft held his side, grimacing as he forced himself into a kneeling position. “All right, lad. I’m done. You got me. I surrender. Let’s wait for Kaladin to show up, and you can continue this conversation with him.”
“I’m not here for Kaladin, Teft,” Moash said softly. “And I’m not here for your surrender.”
Teft steeled himself. Grapple him, he thought. Make that Blade a liability, too big to use. His best hope.
Because Teft did have hope. That was what he’d recovered, these years in Bridge Four. The moss might take him again, but if it did … well, he would fight back again. The past could rot.
Teft, Windrunner, had hope.
He managed to get to his feet, prepared for Moash to lunge at him—but when Moash moved, it wasn’t toward Teft. It was toward Phendorana.
What? Teft stood stunned as Moash pulled a strange dagger from his belt and slammed it down—right where Phendorana was kneeling.
She looked up with surprise and took the knife straight in the forehead. Then she screamed.
Teft leaped for her, howling, watching in horror as she shrank, writhing as Moash’s dagger pinned her to the floor. Her essence burned, flaring outward like an explosion.
Something ripped inside Teft. Something deeper than his own heart. A part of his soul, his being, was torn away. He collapsed immediately, falling near the white spot in the sand that was all that remained of Phendorana.
No. No …
It hurt so much. Agony like a sudden terrible stillness. Nothingness. Emptiness.
It … it can’t be.…
Moash tucked the dagger away methodically. “I can’t feel sorrow anymore, Teft. For that I am grateful.”
Moash turned Teft over with his foot. His broken ribs screamed, but felt like such an insignificant pain now.
“But you know what?” Moash said, standing over him. “There was always a part of me that resented how you were so eager to follow him. Right from the start, his little axehound. Licking his feet. He loves you. I thought I’d have to use his father. But I am … satisfied to have found something better.”
“You are a monster,” Teft whispered.
Moash took Teft calmly by the front of his burned shirt and hoisted him up. “I am no monster. I am merely silence. The quiet that eventually takes all men.”
“Tell yourself that lie, Moash,” Teft growled, gripping the hand that held him, his own hand clawlike from the horrible pain. “But know this. You can kill me, but you can’t have what I have. You can never have it. Because I die knowing I’m loved.”
Moash grunted and dropped him to the ground. Then he stabbed Teft directly through the neck with his Shardblade.
Confident, and somehow still full of hope, Teft died.
For ones so soft, they are somehow strong.
—Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days
The highstorm blowing outside the enormous window presented a view that Kaladin often saw, but others rarely knew. Flashing lightning, a swirling tempest, power raw and unchained.
Kaladin stepped off the Pursuer’s decaying husk and walked forward. Toward the enemy.
The Pursuer searched around, likely realizing how large his audience was. Hundreds watching. He lived by lore, by reputation. He always killed anyone who killed him. He won each conflict eventually.
Now he saw that crumbling. Kaladin could hear it in the increasingly panicked rhythm the Pursuer hummed. Saw it in his eyes.
“Run,” Kaladin told him. “Flee. I’ll chase you. I will never stop. I am eternal. I am the storm.”
The Pursuer stumbled back, but then encountered his soldiers holding the perimeter, humming an encouraging rhythm. Behind them humans gawked, their foreheads painted.
“Has it been long enough, do you think?” Syl whispered. “Are the others free?”
“Hopefully,” Kaladin said. “But I don’t think they’ll be able to escape into that highstorm.”
“Then they’ll have to come out here, and we’ll have to push for the crystal pillar room,” she said, looking toward the infirmary. “Why haven’t they appeared yet?”
“Once we defeat the Pursuer—when he breaks and runs—we’ll find out,” Kaladin said, unhooking Navani’s device from his waist.
“Something’s wrong,” she said softly. “Something dark…”
Kaladin stepped to the very center of the atrium, marked by a swirling pattern of strata. He pointed his knife at the Pursuer. “Last body,” Kaladin called. “Come fight, and we’ll see who dies. We’ll see if your reputation survives the hour.”
The Pursuer, to his credit, came charging in. As he arrived, grabbing Kaladin, Kaladin pressed Navani’s device against the Pursuer’s chest and Lashed the bar down, binding it in place.
