“How are your accommodations?” Dalinar asked.

“Sir? I’m in storming prison.”

A smile cracked Dalinar’s face. “So I see. Calm yourself, soldier. If I’d ordered you to guard a room for a week, would you have done it?”

“Yes.”

“Then consider this your duty. Guard this room.”

“I’ll make sure nobody unauthorized runs off with the chamber pot, sir.”

“Elhokar is coming around. He’s finished cooling off, and now only worries that releasing you too quickly will make him look weak. I’ll need you to stay here a few more days, then we’ll draft a formal pardon for your crime and have you reinstated to your position.”

“I don’t see that I have any choice, sir.”

Dalinar stepped closer to the bars. “This is hard for you.”

Kaladin nodded.

“You are well cared for, as are your men. Two of your bridgemen guard the way into the building at all times. There is nothing to worry you, soldier. If it’s your reputation with me—”

“Sir,” Kaladin said. “I guess I’m just not convinced that the king will ever let me go. He has a history of letting inconvenient people rot in dungeons until they die.”

As soon as he said the words, Kaladin couldn’t believe they’d come from his lips. They sounded insubordinate, even treasonous. But they’d been sitting there, in his mouth, demanding to be spoken.

Dalinar remained in his posture with hands clasped behind his back. “You speak of the silversmiths back in Kholinar?”

So he did know. Stormfather . . . had Dalinar been involved? Kaladin nodded.

“How did you hear of that incident?”

“From one of my men,” Kaladin said. “He knew the imprisoned people.”

“I had hoped we could escape those rumors,” Dalinar said. “But of course, rumor grows like lichen, crusted on and impossible to completely scrub free. What happened with those people was a mistake, soldier. I’ll admit that freely. The same won’t happen to you.”

“Are the rumors about them true, then?”

“I would really rather not speak of the Roshone affair.”

Roshone.

Kaladin remembered screams. Blood on the floor of his father’s surgery room. A dying boy.

A day in the rain. A day when one man tried to steal away Kaladin’s light. He eventually succeeded.

“Roshone?” Kaladin whispered.

“Yes, a minor lighteyes,” Dalinar said, sighing.

“Sir, it’s important that I know of this. For my own peace of mind.”

Dalinar looked him up and down. Kaladin just stared straight ahead, mind . . . numb. Roshone. Everything had started to go wrong when Roshone had arrived in Hearthstone to be the new citylord. Before then, Kaladin’s father had been respected.

When that horrid man had arrived, dragging petty jealousy behind him like a cloak, the world had twisted upon itself. Roshone had infected Hearthstone like rotspren on an unclean wound. He was the reason Tien had gone to war. He was the reason Kaladin had followed.

“I suppose I owe you this,” Dalinar said. “But it is not to be spread around. Roshone was a petty man who gained Elhokar’s ear. Elhokar was crown prince then, commanded to rule over Kholinar and watch the kingdom while his father organized our first camps here in the Shattered Plains. I was . . . away at the time.

“Anyway, do not blame Elhokar. He was taking the advice of someone he trusted. Roshone, however, sought his own interests instead of those of the Throne. He owned several silversmith shops . . . well, the details are not important. Suffice it to say that Roshone led the prince to make some errors. I cleared it up when I returned.”

“You saw this Roshone punished?” Kaladin asked, voice soft, feeling numb.

“Exiled,” Dalinar said, nodding. “Elhokar moved the man to a place where he couldn’t do any more harm.”

A place he couldn’t do any more harm. Kaladin almost laughed.

“You have something to say?”

“You don’t want to know what I think, sir.”

“Perhaps I don’t. I probably need to hear it anyway.”

Dalinar was a good man. Blinded in some ways, but a good man. “Well, sir,” Kaladin said, controlling his emotions with difficulty, “I find it . . . troubling that a man like this Roshone could be responsible for the deaths of innocent people, yet escape prison.”

“It was complicated, soldier. Roshone was one of Highprince Sadeas’s sworn liegemen, cousin to important men whose support we needed. I originally argued that Roshone should be stripped of station and made a tenner, forced to live his life in squalor. But this would have alienated allies, and could have undermined the kingdom. Elhokar argued for leniency toward Roshone, and his father agreed via spanreed. I relented, figuring that mercy was not an attribute I should discourage in Elhokar.”

“Of course not,” Kaladin said, clenching his teeth. “Though it seems that such mercy often ends up serving the cousins of powerful lighteyes, and rarely someone lowly.” He stared through the bars between himself and Dalinar.

“Soldier,” Dalinar asked, voice cool. “Do you think I’ve been unfair toward you or your men?”

“You. No, sir. But this isn’t about you.”

Dalinar exhaled softly, as if in frustration. “Captain, you and your men are in a unique position. You spend your daily lives around the king. You don’t see the face that is presented to the world, you see the man. It has ever been so for close bodyguards.

“So your loyalty needs to be extra firm and generous. Yes, the man you guard has flaws. Every man does. He is still your king, and I will have your respect.”

“I can and do respect the Throne, sir,” Kaladin said. Not the man sitting in it, perhaps. But he did respect the office. Somebody needed to rule.

“Son,” Dalinar said after a moment’s thought, “do you know why I put you into the position that I did?”

“You said it was because you needed someone you could trust not to be a spy for Sadeas.”

“That’s the rationale,” Dalinar said, stepping up closer to the bars, only inches from Kaladin. “But it’s not the reason. I did it because it felt right.”

Kaladin frowned.

“I trust my hunches,” Dalinar said. “My gut said you were a man who could help change this kingdom. A man who could live through Damnation itself in Sadeas’s camp and still somehow inspire others was a man I wanted under my command.” His expression grew harder. “I gave you a position no darkeyes has ever held in this army. I let you into conferences with the king, and I listened when you spoke. Do not make me regret those decisions, soldier.”

“You don’t already?” Kaladin asked.

“I’ve come close,” Dalinar said. “I understand, though. If you truly believe what you told me about Amaram . . . well, if I’d been in your place, I’d have been hard pressed not to do the same thing you did. But storm it, man, you’re still a darkeyes.”

“It shouldn’t matter.”

“Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does. You want to change that? Well, you’re not going to do it by screaming like a lunatic and challenging men like Amaram to duels. You’ll do it by distinguishing yourself in the position I gave you. Be the kind of man that others admire, whether they be lighteyed or dark. Convince Elhokar that a darkeyes can lead. That will change the world.”

Dalinar turned and walked away. Kaladin couldn’t help thinking that the man’s shoulders seemed more bowed than when he’d entered.

After Dalinar left, Kaladin sat back on his bench, letting out a long, annoyed breath. “Stay calm,” he whispered. “Do as you’re told, Kaladin. Stay in your cage.”

“He’s trying to help,” Syl said.

Kaladin glanced to the side. Where was she hiding? “You heard about Roshone.”

Silence.

“Yes,” Syl finally said, voice sounding small.

“My family’s poverty,” Kaladin said, “the way the town ostracized us, Tien being forced into the army, these things were all Roshone’s fault. Elhokar sent him to us.”

Syl didn’t respond. Kaladin fished a bit of flatbread from his bowl, chewing on it. Stormfather—Moash really was right. This kingdom would be better off without Elhokar. Dalinar tried his best, but he had an enormous blind spot regarding his nephew.

It was time someone stepped in and cut the ties binding Dalinar’s hands. For the good of the kingdom, for the good of Dalinar Kholin himself, the king had to die.

Some people—like a festering finger or a leg shattered beyond repair—just needed to be removed.

Now, look what you’ve made me say. You’ve always been able to bring out the most extreme in me, old friend. And I do still name you a friend, for all that you weary me.

What are you doing? the spanreed wrote to Shallan.

Nothing much, she wrote back by spherelight, just working on Sebarial’s income ledgers. She peeked out through the hole in her illusion, regarding the street far below. People flowed through the city as if marching to some strange rhythm. A dribble, then a burst, then back to a dribble. Rarely a constant flow. What caused that?

You want to come visit? the pen wrote. This is getting really boring.

Sorry, she wrote back to Adolin, I really need to get this work done. It might be nice to have a spanreed conversation to keep me company, though.

Pattern hummed softly beside her at the lie. Shallan had used an illusion to expand the size of the shed atop this tenement in Sebarial’s warcamp, providing a hidden place to sit and watch the street below. Five hours of waiting—comfortable enough, with the stool and spheres for light—had revealed nothing. Nobody had approached the lone stone-barked tree growing beside the pathway.

She didn’t know the species. It was too old to have been planted there recently; it must predate Sebarial’s arrival. The gnarled, sturdy bark made her think it was some variety of dendrolith, but the tree also had long fronds that rose into the air like streamers, twisting and fluttering in the wind. Those were reminiscent of a dalewillow. She’d already done a sketch; she would look it up in her books later.

The tree was used to people, and didn’t pull in its fronds as they passed it. If someone had approached carefully enough to avoid brushing the fronds, Shallan would have spotted them. If, instead, they’d moved quickly, the fronds would have felt the vibrations and withdrawn—which she also would have spotted. She was reasonably certain that if anyone had tried to fetch the item in the tree, she’d have known it, even if she’d been looking away for a moment.

I suppose, the pen wrote, I can continue to keep you company. Shoren isn’t doing anything else.

Shoren was the ardent who wrote for Adolin today, come to visit by Adolin’s order. The prince had pointedly noted that he was using an ardent, rather than one of his father’s scribes. Did he think she’d grow jealous if he used another woman for scribing duties?