FIVE AND A HALF YEARS AGO

Dalinar came to himself, gasping, in the cabin of a stormwagon. Heart pounding, he spun about, kicking aside empty bottles and lifting his fists. Outside, the riddens of a storm washed the walls with rain.

What in the Almighty’s tenth name had that been? One moment, he’d been lying in his bunk. The next, he had been … Well, he didn’t rightly remember. What was the drink doing to him now?

Someone rapped on his door.

“Yes?” Dalinar said, his voice hoarse.

“The caravan is preparing to leave, Brightlord.”

“Already? The rain hasn’t even stopped yet.”

“I think they’re, um, eager to be rid of us, sir.”

Dalinar pushed open the door. Felt stood outside, a lithe man with long, drooping mustaches and pale skin. Had to have some Shin blood in him, judging by those eyes.

Though Dalinar hadn’t expressly said what he intended to do out here in Hexi, his soldiers seemed to understand. Dalinar wasn’t sure whether he should be proud of their loyalty, or scandalized by how easily they accepted his intention to visit the Nightwatcher. Of course, one of them—Felt himself—had been this way before.

Outside, the caravan workers hitched up their chulls. They’d agreed to drop him off here, along their path, but refused to take him farther toward the Valley.

“Can you get us the rest of the way?” Dalinar asked.

“Sure,” Felt said. “We’re less than a day off.”

“Then tell the good caravan master that we will take our wagons and split from him here. Pay him what he asked, Felt, and then some on top.”

“If you say so, Brightlord. Seems that having a Shardbearer along with him should be payment enough.”

“Explain that, in part, we’re buying his silence.”

Dalinar waited until the rain had mostly stopped, then threw on his coat and stepped out to join Felt, walking at the front of the wagons. He didn’t feel like being cooped up any longer.

He’d expected this land to look like the Alethi plains. After all, the windswept flatlands of Hexi were not unlike those of his homeland. Yet strangely, there wasn’t a rockbud in sight. The ground was covered in wrinkles, like frozen ripples in a pond, perhaps two or three inches deep. They were crusty on the stormward side, covered with lichen. On the leeward side, grass spread on the ground, flattened.

The sparse trees here were scrawny, hunched-over things with thistle leaves. Their branches bent so far leeward, they almost touched the ground. It was like one of the Heralds had strolled through this place and bent everything sideways. The nearby mountainsides were bare, blasted and scoured raw.

“Not far now, sir,” Felt said. The short man barely came up to the middle of Dalinar’s chest.

“When you came before,” Dalinar said. “What … what did you see?”

“To be frank, sir, nothing. She didn’t come to me. Doesn’t visit everyone, you see.” He clapped his hands, then breathed on them. It had been winter, lately. “You’ll want to go in right after dark. Alone, sir. She avoids groups.”

“Any idea why she didn’t visit you?”

“Well, best I could figure, she doesn’t like foreigners.”

“I might have trouble too.”

“You’re a little less foreign, sir.”

Up ahead, a group of small dark creatures burst from behind a tree and shot into the air, clumped together. Dalinar gaped at their speed and agility. “Chickens?” he said. Little black ones, each the size of a man’s fist.

Felt chuckled. “Yes, wild chickens range this far east. Can’t see what they’d be doing on this side of the mountains though.”

The chickens eventually picked another bent-over tree and settled in its branches.

“Sir,” Felt said. “Forgive me for asking, but you sure you want to do this? You’ll be in her power, in there. And you don’t get to pick the cost.”

Dalinar said nothing, feet crunching on fans of weeds that trembled and rattled when he touched them. There was so much emptiness here in Hexi. In Alethkar, you couldn’t go more than a day or two without running into a farming village. They hiked for a good three hours, during which Dalinar felt both an anxiety to be finished and—at the same time—a reluctance to progress. He had enjoyed his recent sense of purpose. Simultaneously, his decision had given him excuses. If he was going to the Nightwatcher anyway, then why fight the drink?

He’d spent much of the trip intoxicated. Now, with the alcohol running out, the voices of the dead seemed to chase him. They were worst when he tried to sleep, and he felt a dull ache behind his eyes from poor rest.

“Sir?” Felt eventually asked. “Look there.” He pointed to a thin strip of green painting the windswept mountainside.

As they continued, Dalinar got a better view. The mountains split into a valley here, and since the opening pointed to the northeast, foothills shielded the interior from highstorms.

So plant life had exploded inside. Vines, ferns, flowers, and grasses grew together in a wall of underbrush. Trees stretched above them, and these weren’t the durable stumpweights of his homeland. These were gnarled, tall, and twisted, with branches that wound together. They were overgrown with draping moss and vines, lifespren bobbing about them in plenitude.

It all piled atop itself, reeds and branches sticking out in all directions, ferns so overgrown with vines that they drooped beneath the weight. It reminded Dalinar of a battlefield. A grand tapestry, depicting people locked in mortal combat, each one struggling for advantage.

“How does one enter?” Dalinar asked. “How do you pass through that?”

“There are some trails,” Felt said. “If you look hard enough. Shall we camp here, sir? You can scout out a path tomorrow, and make your final decision?”

He nodded, and they set up at the edge of the breach, close enough he could smell the humidity inside. They set up the wagons as a barrier between two trees, and the men soon had tents assembled. They were quick to get a fire going. There was a … feeling to the place. Like you could hear all of those plants growing. The valley shivered and cracked. When wind blew out, it was hot and muggy.

The sun set behind the mountains, plunging them into darkness. Soon after, Dalinar started inward. He couldn’t wait another day. The sound of it lured him. The vines rustling, moving as tiny animals scampered between them. Leaves curling. The men didn’t call after him; they understood his decision.

He stepped into the musty, damp valley, vines brushing his head. He could barely see in the darkness, but Felt had been right—trails revealed themselves as vines and branches bent away from him, allowing Dalinar entrance with the same reluctance as guards allowing an unfamiliar man into the presence of their king.

He had hoped for the Thrill to aid him here. This was a challenge, was it not? He felt nothing, not even a hint.

He trudged through the darkness, and suddenly felt stupid. What was he doing here? Chasing a pagan superstition while the rest of the highprinces gathered to punish Gavilar’s killers? He should be at the Shattered Plains. That was where he’d change himself, where he would go back to the man he’d been before. He wanted to escape the drink? He just needed to summon Oathbringer and find someone to fight.

Who knew what was out there in this forest? If he were a bandit, this was certainly where he would set up. People must flock here. Damnation! He wouldn’t be surprised to discover that someone had started all this simply to draw in unsuspecting marks.

Wait. What was that? A sound different from scurries in the underbrush or vines withdrawing. He stopped in place, listening. It was …

Weeping.

Oh, Almighty above. No.

He heard a boy weeping, pleading for his life. It sounded like Adolin. Dalinar turned from the sound, searching the darkness. Other screams and pleas joined that one, people burning as they died.

In a moment of panic, he turned to run back the way he’d come. He immediately tripped in the underbrush.

He collapsed against rotten wood, vines twisting under his fingers. People screamed and howled all around, the sounds echoing in the near-absolute darkness.

Frantic, he summoned Oathbringer and stumbled to his feet, then began slashing, trying to clear space. Those voices. All around him!

He pushed past a tree trunk, fingers digging into the hanging moss and wet bark. Was the entrance this way?

Suddenly he saw himself in the Unclaimed Hills, fighting those traitorous parshmen. He saw himself killing, and hacking, and murdering. He saw his lust, eyes wide and teeth clenched in a dreadful grin. A skull’s grin.

He saw himself strangling Elhokar, who had never possessed his father’s poise or charm. Dalinar took the throne. It should have been his anyway.

His armies poured into Herdaz, then Jah Keved. He became a king of kings, a mighty conqueror whose accomplishments far overshadowed those of his brother. Dalinar forged a unified Vorin empire that covered half of Roshar. An unparalleled feat!

And he saw them burn.

Hundreds of villages. Thousands upon thousands of people. It was the only way. If a town resisted, you burned it to the ground. You slaughtered any who fought back, and you left the corpses of their loved ones to feed the scavengers. You sent terror before you like a storm until your enemies surrendered.

The Rift would be but the first in a long line of examples. He saw himself standing upon the heaped corpses, laughing. Yes, he had escaped the drink. He had become something grand and terrible.

This was his future.

Gasping, Dalinar dropped to his knees in the dark forest and allowed the voices to swarm around him. He heard Evi among them, crying as she burned to death, unseen, unknown. Alone. He let Oathbringer slip from his fingers and shatter to mist.

The crying faded until it was distant.

Son of Honor … a new sound whispered on the winds, a voice like the rustling of the trees.

He opened his eyes to find himself in a tiny clearing, bathed in starlight. A shadow moved in the darkness beyond the trees, accompanied by the noise of twisting vines and blowing grass.

Hello, human. You smell of desperation. The feminine voice was like a hundred overlapping whispers. The elongated figure moved among the trees ringing the clearing, stalking him like a predator.

“They … they say you can change a man,” Dalinar said, weary.

The Nightwatcher seeped from the darkness. She was a dark green mist, vaguely shaped like a crawling person. Too-long arms reached out, pulling her along as she floated above the ground. Her essence, like a tail, extended far behind her, weaving among tree trunks and disappearing into the forest.

Indistinct and vaporous, she flowed like a river or an eel, and the only part of her with any specific detail was her smooth, feminine face. She glided toward him until her nose was mere inches from his own, her silken black eyes meeting his. Tiny hands sprouted from the misty sides of her head. They reached out, taking his face and touching it with a thousand cold—yet gentle—caresses.

What is it you wish of me? the Nightwatcher asked. What boon drives you, Son of Honor? Son of Odium?

She started to circle him. The tiny black hands kept touching his face, but their arms stretched out, becoming tentacles.

What would you like? she asked. Renown? Wealth? Skill? Would you like to be able to swing a sword and never tire?

“No,” Dalinar whispered.

Beauty? Followers? I can feed your dreams, make you glorious.

Her dark mists wrapped around him. The tiny tendrils tickled his skin. She brought her face right up to his again. What is your boon?

Dalinar blinked tears, listening to the sounds of the children dying in the distance, and whispered a single word.

“Forgiveness.”

The Nightwatcher’s tendrils dodged away from his face, like splayed fingers. She leaned back, pursing her lips.

Perhaps it is possessions you wish, she said. Spheres, gemstones. Shards. A Blade that bleeds darkness and cannot be defeated. I can give it to you.

“Please,” Dalinar said, drawing in a ragged breath. “Tell me. Can I … can I ever be forgiven?”

It wasn’t what he’d intended to request.

He couldn’t remember what he’d intended to request.

The Nightwatcher curled around him, agitated. Forgiveness is no boon. What should I do to you. What should I give you? Speak it, human. I—

THAT IS ENOUGH, CHILD.

This new voice startled them both. If the Nightwatcher’s voice was like whispering wind, this one was like tumbling stones. The Nightwatcher backed away from him in a sharp motion.

Hesitant, Dalinar turned and found a woman with brown skin—the color of darkwood bark—standing at the edge of the clearing. She had a matronly build and wore a sweeping brown dress.

Mother? the Nightwatcher said. Mother, he came to me. I was going to bless him.

THANK YOU, CHILD, the woman said. BUT THIS BOON IS BEYOND YOU. She focused on Dalinar. YOU MAY ATTEND ME, DALINAR KHOLIN.

Numbed by the surreal spectacle, Dalinar stood up. “Who are you?”

SOMEONE BEYOND YOUR AUTHORITY TO QUESTION. She strode into the forest, and Dalinar joined her. Moving through the underbrush seemed easier now, though the vines and branches pulled toward the strange woman. Her dress seemed to meld with it all, the brown cloth becoming bark or grass.

The Nightwatcher curled along beside them, her dark mist flowing through the holes in the underbrush. Dalinar found her distinctly unnerving.

YOU MUST FORGIVE MY DAUGHTER, the woman said. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN CENTURIES I’VE COME PERSONALLY TO SPEAK WITH ONE OF YOU.

“Then this isn’t how it happens every time?”

OF COURSE NOT. I LET HER HOLD COURT HERE. The woman brushed her fingers through the Nightwatcher’s misty hair. IT HELPS HER UNDERSTAND YOU.

Dalinar frowned, trying to make sense of all this. “What … why did you choose to come out now?”

BECAUSE OF THE ATTENTION OTHERS PAY YOU. AND WHAT DID I TELL YOU OF DEMANDING QUESTIONS?

Dalinar shut his mouth.

WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE, HUMAN? DO YOU NOT SERVE HONOR, THE ONE YOU CALL ALMIGHTY? LOOK UNTO HIM FOR FORGIVENESS.

“I asked the ardents,” Dalinar said. “I didn’t get what I wanted.”

YOU GOT WHAT YOU DESERVED. THE TRUTH YOU HAVE CRAFTED FOR YOURSELVES.

“I am doomed then,” Dalinar whispered, stopping in place. He could still hear those voices. “They weep, Mother.”

She looked back at him.

“I hear them when I close my eyes. All around me, begging me to save them. They’re driving me mad.”

She contemplated him, the Nightwatcher twining around her legs, then around Dalinar’s, then back again.

This woman … she was more than he could see. Vines from her dress curled into the earth, permeating everything. In that moment he knew that he was not seeing her, but instead a fragment with which he could interact.

This woman extended into eternity.

THIS WILL BE YOUR BOON. I WILL NOT MAKE OF YOU THE MAN YOU CAN BECOME. I WILL NOT GIVE YOU THE APTITUDE, OR THE STRENGTH, NOR WILL I TAKE FROM YOU YOUR COMPULSIONS.

BUT I WILL GIVE YOU … A PRUNING. A CAREFUL EXCISION TO LET YOU GROW. THE COST WILL BE HIGH.

“Please,” Dalinar said. “Anything.”

She stepped back to him. IN DOING THIS, I PROVIDE FOR HIM A WEAPON. DANGEROUS, VERY DANGEROUS. YET, ALL THINGS MUST BE CULTIVATED. WHAT I TAKE FROM YOU WILL GROW BACK EVENTUALLY. THIS IS PART OF THE COST.

IT WILL DO ME WELL TO HAVE A PART OF YOU, EVEN IF YOU ULTIMATELY BECOME HIS. YOU WERE ALWAYS BOUND TO COME TO ME. I CONTROL ALL THINGS THAT CAN BE GROWN, NURTURED.

THAT INCLUDES THE THORNS.

She seized him, and the trees descended, the branches, the vines. The forest curled around him and crept into the crevices around his eyes, under his fingernails, into his mouth and ears. Into his pores.

A BOON AND A CURSE, the Mother said. THAT IS HOW IT IS DONE. I WILL TAKE THESE THINGS FROM YOUR MIND. AND WITH THEM, I TAKE HER.

“I…” Dalinar tried to speak as plant life engulfed him. “Wait!”

Remarkably, the vines and branches stopped. Dalinar hung there, speared by vines that had somehow pushed through his skin. There was no pain, but he felt the tendrils writhing inside his very veins.

SPEAK.

“You’ll take…” He spoke with difficulty. “You’ll take Evi from me?”

ALL MEMORIES OF HER. THIS IS THE COST. SHOULD I FORBEAR?

Dalinar squeezed his eyes shut. Evi …

He had never deserved her.

“Do it,” he whispered.

The vines and branches surged forward and began to rip away pieces of him from the inside.

*   *   *

Dalinar crawled from the forest the next morning. His men rushed to him, bringing water and bandages, though strangely he needed neither.

But he was tired. Very, very tired.

They propped him in the shade of his stormwagon, exhaustionspren spinning in the air. Malli—Felt’s wife—quickly scribed a note via spanreed back to the ship.

Dalinar shook his head, memory fuzzy. What … what had happened? Had he really asked for forgiveness?

He couldn’t fathom why. Had he felt that bad for failing … He stretched for the word. For failing …

Storms. His wife. Had he felt so bad for failing her by letting assassins claim her life? He searched his mind, and found that he couldn’t recall what she looked like. No image of her face, no memories of their time together.

Nothing.

He did remember these last few years as a drunkard. The years before, spent in conquest. In fact, everything about his past seemed clear except her.

“Well?” Felt said, kneeling beside him. “I assume it … happened.”

“Yes,” Dalinar said.

“Anything we need to know about?” he asked. “I once heard of a man who visited here, and from then on, every person he touched fell upward instead of down.”

“You needn’t worry. My curse is for me alone.” How strange, to be able to remember scenes where she had been, but not remember … um … storms take him, her name.

“What was my wife’s name?” Dalinar asked.

“Shshshsh?” Felt said. It came out as a blur of sounds.

Dalinar started. She’d been taken completely? Had that … that been the cost? Yes … grief had caused him to suffer these last years. He’d suffered a breakdown at losing the woman he loved.

Well, he assumed that he’d loved her. Curious.

Nothing.

It seemed that the Nightwatcher had taken memories of his wife, and in so doing, given him the boon of peace. However, he did still feel sorrow and guilt for failing Gavilar, so he wasn’t completely healed. He still wanted a bottle to numb the grief of losing his brother.

He would break that habit. When men abused drink under his command, he’d found that the solution was to work them hard, and not let them taste strong wines. He could do the same to himself. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could manage it.

Dalinar relaxed, but felt like something else was missing inside of him. Something he couldn’t identify. He listened to his men breaking camp, telling jokes now that they could leave. Beyond that, he heard rustling leaves. And beyond that, nothing. Shouldn’t he have heard …

He shook his head. Almighty, what a foolish quest this had been. Had he really been so weak that he needed a forest spren to relieve his grief?

“I need to be in communication with the king,” Dalinar said, standing. “Tell our men at the docks to contact the armies. By the time I arrive, I want to have battle maps and plans for the Parshendi conquest.”

He’d moped long enough. He had not always been the best of brothers, or the best of lighteyes. He’d failed to follow the Codes, and that had cost Gavilar his life.

Never again.

He straightened his uniform and glanced at Malli. “Tell the sailors that while they’re in port, they’re to find me an Alethi copy of a book called The Way of Kings. I’d like to hear it read to me again. Last time, I wasn’t in my right mind.”