Adolin’s head rang from a blow. He’d almost done it. He let himself grin as they beat on him. Four at once. And he’d almost done it.

“I yield,” he said, voice muffled by his helm.

They continued attacking. He said it louder.

Nobody listened.

He raised his hand to signal to the judge to stop the proceedings, but someone slammed his arm downward.

No! Adolin thought, swinging about himself in a panic.

The judge could not end the fight. If he left this duel alive, he would do so as a cripple.

* * *

“That’s it,” Dalinar said, watching the four Shardbearers take turns coming in to swing at Adolin, who was obviously disoriented, barely able to fight them off. “The rules allow Adolin to have help, so long as his side is disadvantaged—one less than Relis’s team. Elhokar, I’ll need your Shardblade.”

“No,” Elhokar said. The king sat with folded arms beneath the shade. Those around them watched the duel . . . no, the beating . . . in silence.

“Elhokar!” Dalinar said, turning. “That is my son.”

“You’re without Plate,” Elhokar said. “If you take the time to put some on, you’ll be too late. If you go down, you won’t save Adolin. You’ll simply lose my Blade as well as all the others.”

Dalinar clenched his teeth. There was a drop of wisdom in that, and he knew it. Adolin was finished. They needed to end the match now and not put more on the line.

“You could help him, you know.” Sadeas’s voice.

Dalinar spun toward the man.

“The dueling conventions don’t forbid it,” Sadeas said, speaking loudly enough for Dalinar to hear. “I checked to make sure. Young Adolin can be helped by up to two people. The Blackthorn I once knew would have been down there already, fighting with a rock if he had to. I guess you’re not that man anymore.”

Dalinar sucked in a breath, then stood. “Elhokar, I’ll pay the fee and borrow your Blade by right of the tradition of the King’s Blade. You won’t risk it that way. I’m going to fight.”

Elhokar caught him by the arm, standing. “Don’t be a fool, Uncle. Listen to him! Do you see what he’s doing? He obviously wants you to go down and fight.”

Dalinar turned to meet the king’s eyes. Pale green. Like his father’s.

“Uncle,” Elhokar said, grip tightening on his arm, “listen to me for once. Be a little paranoid. Why would Sadeas want you down there? It’s so that an ‘accident’ can occur! He wants you removed, Dalinar. I guarantee that if you step onto those sands, all four will attack you straight out. Shardblade or none, you’ll be dead before you get into stance.”

Dalinar puffed in and out. Elhokar was right. Storm him, but he was right. Dalinar had to do something though.

A murmur rose from the watching crowd, whispers like scratches on paper. Dalinar spun to see that someone else had joined the battle, stepping from the preparation room, Shardblade held nervously in two hands but wearing no Plate.

Renarin.

Oh no . . .

* * *

One of the attackers moved away, Plated feet crunching on sand. Adolin threw himself in that direction, battering his way out from among the three others. He spun and backed away. His Plate was starting to feel heavy. How much Stormlight had he lost?

No broken sections, he thought, keeping his sword toward the three other men who fanned out to advance on him. He could maybe . . .

No. Time to end this. He felt a fool, but better a live fool than a dead one. He turned toward the highjudge to signal his surrender. Surely she could see him now.

“Adolin,” Relis said, prowling forward, his Plate leaking from small cracks on his chest. “Now, we wouldn’t want to end this prematurely, would we?”

“What glory do you think will come of such a fight?” Adolin spat back, sword held carefully, ready to give the signal. “You think people will cheer you? For beating a man four against one?”

“This isn’t for honor,” Relis said. “It’s simple punishment.”

Adolin snorted. Only then did he notice something on the other side of the arena. Renarin in Kholin blue, holding a wobbly Shardblade and facing down Abrobadar, who stood with sword on his shoulder as if completely unthreatened.

“Renarin!” Adolin shouted. “What in the storms are you doing! Go back—”

Abrobadar attacked, and Renarin parried awkwardly. Renarin had done all of his sparring in Shardplate so far, but hadn’t had the time to fetch his Plate. Abrobadar’s blow just about knocked the weapon from Renarin’s hands.

“Now,” Relis said, stepping closer to Adolin, “Abrobadar there is fond of young Renarin, and doesn’t want to hurt him. So he’ll just keep the young man engaged, make a good fight of it. So long as you’re willing to keep up what you promised, and have a good duel with us. Surrender like a coward, or get the king to end the bout, and Abrobadar’s sword might just slip.”

Adolin felt a panic rising. He looked toward the highjudge. She could call this on her own, if she felt it had gone too far.

She sat imperiously in her seat, watching him. Adolin thought he saw something behind her calm expression. They got to her, he thought. With a bribe, perhaps.

Adolin tightened his grip on his Blade and looked back toward his three foes. “You bastards,” he whispered. “Jakamav, how dare you be a part of this?”

Jakamav didn’t reply, and Adolin could not see his face behind his green helm.

“So,” Relis said. “Shall we?”

Adolin’s response was a charge.

* * *

Dalinar reached the judge’s seat, which sat on its own small, stone dais hanging out a few inches over the dueling grounds.

Brightness Istow was a tall, greying woman who sat with hands in her lap, watching the duel. She did not turn as Dalinar stepped up beside her.

“It is time to end this, Istow,” Dalinar said. “Call the fight. Award the victory to Relis and his team.”

The woman kept her eyes forward, watching the duel.

“Did you hear me?” Dalinar demanded.

She said nothing.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll end it then.”

“I am highprince here, Dalinar,” the woman said. “In this arena, my word is the only law, granted me by the authority of the king.” She turned to him. “Your son has not surrendered and he is not incapacitated. The terms of the duel have not been met, and I will not end it until they have been. Have you no respect for the law?”

Dalinar ground his teeth together, then looked back at the arena. Renarin fought one of the men. The lad had barely any training in the sword. In fact, as Dalinar watched, Renarin’s shoulder began to twitch, pulling up toward his head violently. One of his fits.

Adolin fought the other three, having cast himself among them again. He fought marvelously, but could not fend off all of them. The three surrounded him and struck.

The pauldron on Adolin’s left shoulder exploded into a burst of molten metal, bits trailing smoke through the air, the main chunk of it skidding to the sands a short distance away. That left Adolin’s flesh exposed to the air, and to the Blades facing him.

Please . . . Almighty . . .

Dalinar turned upon the stands full of spectating lighteyes. “You can watch this?” he shouted at them. “My sons fight alone! There are Shardbearers among you. Is there not one of you who will fight with them?”

He scanned the crowd. The king was looking at his feet. Amaram. What of Amaram? Dalinar found him seated near the king. Dalinar met the man’s eyes.

Amaram looked away.

No . . .

“What has happened to us?” Dalinar asked. “Where is our honor?”

“Honor is dead,” a voice whispered from beside him.

Dalinar turned and looked at Captain Kaladin. He hadn’t noticed the bridgeman walking down the steps behind him.

Kaladin took a deep breath, then looked at Dalinar. “But I’ll see what I can do. If this goes poorly, take care of my men.” Spear in hand, he grabbed the edge of the wall and flung himself over, dropping to the sands of the arena floor below.

Malchin was stymied, for though he was inferior to none in the arts of war, he was not suitable for the Lightweavers; he wished for his oaths to be elementary and straightforward, and yet their spren were liberal, as to our comprehension, in definitions pertaining to this matter; the process included speaking truths as an approach to a threshold of self-awareness that Malchin could never attain.

—From Words of Radiance, chapter 12, page 12

Shallan stood up in her seat, watching Adolin’s beating below. Why didn’t he surrender? Give up the bout?

Four men. She should have seen that loophole. As his wife, watching for intrigue like this would be her duty. Now, barely betrothed, she’d already failed him disastrously. Beyond that, this fiasco had been her idea.

Adolin seemed about to give in, but then for some reason, he threw himself back into the fight instead.

“Fool man,” Sebarial said, lounging beside her, Palona on his other side. “Too arrogant to see that he’s beaten.”

“No,” Shallan said. “There’s something more.” Her eyes flicked down toward poor Renarin, completely overwhelmed as he tried to fight a Shardbearer.

For the briefest instant, she considered going down to help. Sheer stupidity; she’d be even more useless than Renarin down there. Why didn’t anyone else help them? She glared across at the gathered Alethi lighteyes, including Highlord Amaram, the supposed Knight Radiant.

Bastard.

Shocked at how quickly that sentiment rose inside of her, Shallan looked away from him. Don’t think about it. Well, as nobody was going to help, both princes seemed to stand a good chance of dying.

“Pattern,” she whispered. “Go see if you can distract that Shardbearer fighting Prince Renarin.” She would not interfere with Adolin’s fight, not as he’d obviously decided he needed to keep going for some reason. But she would try to keep Renarin from getting maimed, if she could.

Pattern hummed and slipped from her skirt, moving across the stone of the arena benches. He seemed painfully obvious to her, moving in the open, but everybody was focused on the fighting below.

Don’t you get yourself killed on me, Adolin Kholin, she thought, glancing back up at him as he struggled against his three opponents. Please . . .

Someone else dropped to the sands.

* * *

Kaladin dashed across the arena floor.

Again, he thought, remembering coming to Amaram’s rescue so long ago. “This had better end differently than it did that time.”

“It will,” Syl promised, zipping along beside his head, a line of light. “Trust me.”

Trust. He’d trusted her and spoken to Dalinar about Amaram. That had gone wonderfully.

One of the Shardbearers—Relis, the one in black armor—trailed Stormlight from a crack in the vambrace on his left forearm. He glanced at Kaladin as he approached, then turned back away, indifferent. Relis obviously didn’t think a simple spearman was a threat.