Words of Radiance

Adolin prepares for his first duel, wagering his own Shardblade and Shardplate against another Shardbearer’s. Navani helps him, and though they know Jasnah’s ship did not dock, she is not worried, while Adolin is anxious to meet Shallan, his betrothed. Adolin steps out into the pit, and when the duel commences, he attacks quickly, taking his opponent by surprise and easily defeating him. He gives the Shardblade to his brother, Renarin.

Shallan worries that Tvlakv will abandon her. She promises to pay him generously if he delivers her. He is not convinced, and she uses her new skill, Lightweaving, to project herself as a more confident woman. After their conversation, one of the men reports having seen deserters from the Shattered Plains. These men, now criminals, are dangerous, and the group flees.

Kaladin and his guard follow Adolin and Renarin to the lighteyes’ training ground. While he waits for them to begin, Kaladin tells Syl that he wants to kill Amaram for his crimes and that, since Dalinar aligns with Amaram, he cannot trust Dalinar either. Syl emphasizes that Dalinar does not know of Amaram’s crimes. Despite Kaladin and Adolin's being wary of each other, when Kaladin sees a man in the shadows watching Adolin and Renarin, he investigates. The man, Zahel, trains Shardbearers, and he is called to instruct Renarin.

Shallan’s liespren notices smoke behind them, meaning the deserters are in pursuit. They also see smoke ahead of them, signifying either another threat or another caravan. Shallan orders Tvlakv to approach the smoke ahead. Through conversation with Pattern, Shallan comes to realize that spren and humans have a symbiotic relationship. In this partnership, spren gain independent thought and life in the world while humans become Surgebinders. Pattern reveals that he is a scholar sent to study her and that he knows she will kill him, as the Knights Radiant did to their spren.

While Kaladin watches Renarin practice the limits of his Shardplate, Zahel offers to instruct him how to fight Shardbearers. Kaladin scoffs at him, and Zahel challenges Kaladin. Though Kaladin is swift, Zahel bests him. Adolin challenges Kaladin next, asking what he would do as a bodyguard if two Shardbearers attacked. Kaladin accepts the challenge and nearly lands a blow on Adolin before Adolin throws him across the yard. Zahel chastises Adolin for abusing his power.

Five and a half years ago, Shallan is mute. Maids prepare the house for a party and whisper about how Shallan witnessed her father murder her mother. Shallan’s oldest brother, Helaran, visits to give her a sketchpad. He asks her to watch out for the others while he is gone. Their father joins them, yelling at Helaran for leaving, but Helaran stops him when he summons a Shardblade, saying he must go. He promises Shallan he will explain when he returns, and her father throws a violent fit.

Shallan’s group reaches the caravan ahead and meets scouts who explain that they were attacked and that the bandits will return. When these bandits appear, Shallan sends her group to help while she runs to meet the deserters behind them. When she finds them, she uses Lightweaving to change her appearance into that of a taller, stately woman, offering the deserters a chance at redemption. She describes them as heroes and promises pardons. Though their leader resists, his men listen to Shallan and charge ahead to save the caravan.

After the fight, Shallan joins the new caravan, and its leader agrees to take her ahead to the Shattered Plains. She meets with the leader of the deserters and reassures him that she will make good on her promise to pay them and earn them a pardon for their heroics when they reach the Shattered Plains.

Kaladin stands guard over the royal family during a highstorm. Dalinar and his family discuss their stalled strategy, as no one will duel Adolin. Dalinar shifts his focus to hurting Sadeas. After the meeting, Kaladin tells Dalinar how Amaram killed Kaladin’s friends to claim a Shardblade but admits he has no evidence. Dalinar promises to investigate it, but Kaladin’s frustration at this answer worries Syl. At the barracks, Shen, a parshman in Bridge Four, asks Kaladin if he is a soldier or an enslaved person, and Kaladin reluctantly tells him that he cannot arm him because of how lighteyes would react. As Kaladin agonizes over his hypocrisy, someone informs him of an assassination attempt on the king.

Elhokar is safe. After the storm, Elhokar went out onto his balcony, where the railing gave out, and he nearly fell to his death. Kaladin and Dalinar inspect the railing and realize that it was cut with a Shardblade. They believe the treachery was committed by someone with easy access to the chambers. Elhokar declares that he wants Kaladin as his personal guard, and Kaladin agrees, though he finds the king spoiled and powerless.

As Shallan travels to the Shattered Plains, Pattern explains that some spren serve the Voidbringers and their leader, Odium. These spren are connected to hate rather than the thoughts of men. One night, Tyn, who works security for the caravan, invites Shallan to dinner and reveals that she investigated Shallan’s background through her contacts in Shallan’s homeland of Jah Keved. She used a spanreeder, a gem-powered tool that allows instantaneous written communication across large distances. Tyn believes Shallan is a conwoman, and as one herself, she wants to train her.

As Kaladin thinks about the assassination attempt, he realizes that it happened after the storm, as the storm’s winds would have blown the weakened railing away. He asks Moash, who was guarding Elhokar after the storm, if anyone was on the balcony. Moash tells Kaladin he knows nothing, and though Kaladin cannot shake a suspicion, he cannot imagine that Moash would be an assassin.

On a plateau assault, Adolin reaches the chrysalis only to find the Parshendi retreating with the gemheart. He is confronted by the Parshendi Shardbearer, who he realizes is a woman. She asks to speak with Dalinar. Knowing that his father wants peace through diplomacy, Dalinar agrees. She tells him she will send a messenger.

Five years ago, Shallan’s brother Jushu, a gambler, told Shallan that their father loved Helaran more than anyone else, though Helaran hated and betrayed him. Jushu says Helaran is the only one of the siblings who did not lose his mind after their mother’s death. They pass their father’s room, and Shallan stops to stare at the light flowing from the strongbox behind the painting. She asks Jushu if he can see it, but he says he cannot.

Shallan now rides with Tyn, and the woman teaches Shallan that to be a con artist, she will need to act not only as a high-born lighteyes but as a poor person as well, giving her eyedrops that can change her eyes to a dark color. This will help her gain access to places the real Shallan cannot. When the caravan stops, met by patrols from the Shattered Plains, Tyn and Shallan go out to meet them. The men are from Dalinar’s personal guard, and their leader introduces himself as Kal. Shallan acts like a foreign princess, convincing Kal to give her his boots.

Sadeas and Amaram go on an unauthorized plateau assault, prepared to pay Dalinar’s fine. Sadeas tells Amaram that they must remake Alethkar through force and not let Dalinar interfere. Later that day, Sadeas watches Adolin’s duel and is impressed to find the boy playing down to his opponent in an attempt to deceive others into believing that he is not as skilled as he boasts.

Shallan forces the caravan to stop when they reach an oasis. She sits and draws for hours, including portraits of the deserters-turned-soldiers. She draws them in a flattering light to convince them to be honorable. Afterward, Tyn asks what Shallan’s plan is at the Shattered Plains. She tells Tyn that she will pose as Adolin’s betrothed, and Tyn suggests she refuse to stay in his Dalinar’s warcamp and instead stay in another, to preserve her independence.

Kaladin returns from his patrol outside the warcamps and goes to guard the Kholins, feeling anxious as a highstorm approaches. Shallan’s caravan can see the warcamps, but with the storm coming, Shallan convinces them to camp for the night and approach in the morning.

During the highstorm, Kaladin dreams that he is the storm sweeping over the continent. He hears the voice of the Stormfather, a giant face in the clouds, who says he will kill Syl, like the Radiants before him. Before he wakes, he sees a gigantic red storm on the horizon. Kaladin wakes in a panic and rushes to the balcony, where Syl warns him that someone is coming. Kaladin evacuates the Kholin family, sending men ahead. In a hallway, they find one of these men, dead, and a hole in the wall. The Assassin in White walks toward them, glowing.

Elhokar and Navani flee with Kaladin’s men and Renarin while Kaladin, Dalinar, and Adolin confront the Assassin. The Assassin in White moves quickly, stunning Dalinar and disarming Adolin. Kaladin matches the assassin with the use of Stormlight but falters and loses feeling in his arm when the assassin slices through it with his Shardblade. The Assassin tells Dalinar he is here for him, not Elhokar. Syl warns Kaladin that the Assassin is not a Radiant, with no spren to guide him. When the Assassin swings his blade down toward Dalinar, Dalinar catches it, opening a window for Kaladin to tackle the assassin out of the hole in the wall.

Stormlight saves Kaladin as he falls, and he begins to heal when he hits the ground. The Assassin is shocked to see Kaladin alive and even more shocked when Kaladin uses Stormlight to heal his dead arm. The Assassin, who calls himself Szeth-son-son-Velano, says that Kaladin is impossible and that this would make Szeth a liar. Szeth flees, flying through the air. Kaladin makes sure the Kholins are safe.

Shallan and Tyn watch the spanreeder as Tyn’s connection reveals that Tyn’s previous job was to kill Jasnah. Shallan is shocked, and Tyn turns on her when her connection explains that Shallan was Jasnah’s ward. She beats Shallan, asking if Jasnah is really dead. Shallan summons a Shardblade and kills Tyn with it. Afterward, Shallan finds another message on the spanreeder, asking Tyn if she wants to meet with her employers, the Ghostbloods, in the warcamps. Shallan writes back that she does.

Eshonai will meet the Alethi in seven days. Before this, she heads out onto the plateaus as a highstorm nears. She faces the storm until everything calms, and she meets the Stormfather, a powerful spren the Parshendi call the Rider, who betrayed them and once sided with humans. She breaks the gemstone Venli gave her, releasing a red, lightning-like spren. The Rider asks if this is what Eshonai wants, and though she feels it is wrong and tries to stop it, the Rider says it must happen. The storm hits her again, and Eshonai changes.

Zahel wakes in the middle of the night after the storm and opens his door just as Kaladin arrives. Kaladin explains that there was an assassination attempt and that he needs Zahel to train him to fight a Shardbearer.

The wagon driver Bordin brings Taln, or Talenel’Elin, Herald of War, to Elhokar and Dalinar. The man babbles about what he and the other Heralds must do to prepare people for the Desolation. Bordin explains that the man was like this the entire journey, and Elhokar is worried when he sees that the man has a Shardblade. They take the Shardblade and send Talenel’Elin to the ardents to heal. Taln wonders how long he has been gone and whether he is too late.

Eshonai returns to Narak, eyes red, power surging through her veins, with a lighter natural armor protecting her body. She jumps a chasm easily, the wind now guiding her. She tells Venli and the crowd waiting for her that she knows the way forward and can feel a storm coming. With many of them in stormform, they can summon the storm and use it to destroy their enemies. Deep down, a part of Eshonai screams.