Thunder beat against her as the raging wind tried to pull her off the plateau and toss her into the air. She kept her eyes closed, as all was black within the storm save for the flashes of lightning. It did not seem to her she was being protected. Her shoulder against the wind, huddling down behind a hillock, it seemed that the wind was doing its best to destroy her. Rocks crunched against the dark plateau nearby, shaking the ground. All she could hear was the roar of wind in her ears, punctuated occasionally by thunder. A terrible song without rhythm.

She kept Resolve attuned inside of her. She could feel that, at least, even if she couldn’t hear.

Rain that fell like arrowheads beat into her body, bouncing off her skullplate and her armor. She set her jaw against the deep, bone-chilling cold and stayed in place. She had done this many times before, either when transforming or when on the occasional surprise raid against the Alethi. She could survive. She would survive.

She focused on the rhythm in her head, clinging to some rocks as the wind tried to push her back off the plateau. Demid, Venli’s once-mate, had started a movement where people who wanted to transform waited inside buildings until the storm had been going for a while. They only stepped out once the initial burst of fury was past. That was risky, as you never knew when the point of transformation would come.

Eshonai had never tried it. The storms were violent, they were dangerous, but they were also things of discovery. Within them, the familiar became something grand, majestic, and terrible. She did not look forward to entering them, but when she had to, she always found the experience thrilling.

She lifted her head, eyes closed, and put her face to the winds—feeling them blast her, shake her. She felt the rain on her skin. The Rider of Storms was a traitor, yes—but you could not have a traitor who had not originally been a friend. These storms belonged to her people. The listeners were of the storms.

The rhythms changed in her mind. In a moment, they all aligned and became the same. No matter which one she attuned, she heard the same rhythm—single, steady beats. Like that of a heart. The moment had arrived.

The storm vanished. Wind, rain, sound . . . gone. Eshonai stood up, dripping wet, her muscles cold, her skin numb. She shook her head, spraying water, and looked up into the sky.

The face was there. Infinite, expansive. The humans spoke of their Stormfather, yet they never knew him as a listener did. As wide as the sky itself, with eyes full of countless stars. The gemstone in Eshonai’s hand burst alight.

Power, energy. She imagined it coursing through her, energizing her, enlivening her. Eshonai threw the gemstone against the ground, smashing it and releasing the spren. She worked hard to get the proper feel down, as Venli had trained her.

IS THIS REALLY WHAT YOU WANT? The voice reverberated through her like crashing thunder.

The Rider had spoken to her! That happened in songs, but not . . . never . . . She attuned Appreciation, but of course it was the same rhythm now. Beat. Beat. Beat.

The spren escaped from its prison and spun around her, giving off a strange red light. Splinters of lightning sprang from it. Angerspren?

This was wrong.

I SUPPOSE THIS MUST BE, the Stormfather said. IT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

“No,” Eshonai said, stepping back from that spren. In a moment of panic, she cast from her mind the preparations that Venli had given her. “No!”

The spren became a streak of red light and hit her in the chest. Tendrils of red spread outward.

I CANNOT STOP THIS, the Stormfather said. I WOULD SHELTER YOU, LITTLE ONE, IF I WERE GIVEN THAT POWER. I AM SORRY.

Eshonai gasped, the rhythms fleeing her mind, and fell to her knees. She felt it wash through her, the transformation.

I AM SORRY.

The rains came again, and her body began to change.

Someone was near.

Zahel awoke, snapping his eyes open, knowing instantly that someone was approaching his room.

Blast! It was the middle of the night. If this was another lighteyed brat he’d turned away, come to beg . . . He grumbled to himself, climbing off his cot. I am far, far too old for this.

He pulled open his door, revealing the courtyard of the practice grounds at night. The air was wet. Oh, right. One of those storms had come, Invested to the hilt and looking for a place to stick it all. Cursed things.

A young man, hand poised to knock, jumped back in surprise from the opening door. Kaladin. The bridgeman-turned-bodyguard. The one with that spren Zahel could sense always spinning about.

“You look like death itself,” Zahel snapped at the boy. Kaladin’s clothing was bloodied, his uniform ripped up on one side. The right sleeve was missing. “What happened?”

“Attempt on the king’s life,” the boy said softly. “Not two hours ago.”

“Huh.”

“Is your offer to learn how to fight a Shardblade still good?”

“No.” Zahel slammed the door. He turned to walk back toward his cot.

The boy pushed the door open, of course. Blasted monks. Saw themselves as property and couldn’t own anything, so they figured they didn’t need locks on the doors.

“Please,” the boy said. “I—”

“Kid,” Zahel said, turning back toward him. “Two people live in this room.”

The boy frowned, looking at the single cot.

“The first,” Zahel said, “is a grouchy swordsman who has a soft spot for kids who are in over their heads. He comes out by day. The other is a very, very grouchy swordsman who finds everything and everyone utterly contemptible. He comes out when some fool wakes him at a horrid hour of the night. I suggest you ask the first man and not the second. All right?”

“All right,” the boy said. “I’ll be back.”

“Good,” Zahel said, settling down on the bed. “And don’t be green from the ground.”

The boy paused by the door. “Don’t be . . . Huh?”

Stupid language, Zahel thought, climbing into his cot. No proper metaphors at all. “Just leave your attitude and come to learn. I hate beating up people younger than me. It makes me feel like a bully.”

The kid grunted, sliding the door shut. Zahel pulled up his blanket—damn monks only got one—and turned over on his cot. He expected a voice to speak in his mind as he drifted off. Of course, there wasn’t one.

Hadn’t been one in years.

Of fires that burned and yet they were gone. Of heat he could feel when others felt not. Of screams his own that nobody heard. Of torture sublime, for life it meant.

“He just stares like that, Your Majesty.”

Words.

“He doesn’t seem to see anything. Sometimes he mumbles. Sometimes he shouts. But always, he just stares.”

The Gift and words. Not his. Never his. Now his.

“Storms, it’s haunting, isn’t it? I had to ride all this way with that, Your Majesty. Listening to him ranting in the back of the wagon half the time. Then feeling him stare at the back of my head the rest.”

“And Wit? You mentioned him.”

“Started on the trip with me, Your Majesty. But on the second day, he declared that he needed a rock.”

“A . . . rock.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. He hopped out of the wagon and found one, then, er, he hit himself on the head with it, Your Majesty. Did it three or four times. Came right back to the wagon with an odd grin, and said . . . um . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, he said that he’d needed, uh, I had this remembered for you. He said, ‘I needed an objective frame of reference by which to judge the experience of your company. Somewhere between four and five blows, I place it.’ I don’t rightly understand what he meant, sir. I think he was mocking me.”

“Safe bet.”

Why didn’t they scream? That heat! Of death. Of death and the dead and the dead and their talking and not screaming of death except of the death that did not come.

“After that, Your Majesty, Wit just kind of, well, ran off. Into the hills. Like some storming Horneater.”

“Don’t try to understand Wit, Bordin. You’ll only cause yourself pain.”

“Yes, Brightlord.”

“I like this Wit.”

“We’re quite aware, Elhokar.”

“Honestly, Your Majesty, I preferred the madman for company.”

“Well of course you did. If people liked to be around Wit, he wouldn’t be much of a Wit, would he?”

They were on fire. The walls were on fire. The floor was on fire. Burning and the inside of a cannot where to be and then at all. Where?

A trip. Water? Wheels?

Fire. Yes, fire.

“Can you hear me, madman?”

“Elhokar, look at him. I doubt he understands.”

“I am Talenel’Elin, Herald of War.” Voice. He spoke it. He didn’t think it. The words came, like they always came.

“What was that? Speak louder, man.”

“The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand. We must prepare. You will have forgotten much, following the destruction of the times past.”

“I can make out some of it, Elhokar. It’s Alethi. Northern accent. Not what I’d have expected from one with such dark skin.”

“Where did you get the Shardblade, madman? Tell me. Most Blades are accounted for through the generations, their lineage and history recorded. This one is completely unknown. From whom did you take it?”

“Kalak will teach you to cast bronze, if you have forgotten this. We will Soulcast blocks of metal directly for you. I wish we could teach you steel, but casting is so much easier than forging, and you must have something we can produce quickly. Your stone tools will not serve against what is to come.”

“He said something about bronze. And stone?”

“Vedel can train your surgeons, and Jezrien . . . he will teach you leadership. So much is lost between Returns . . .”

“The Shardblade! Where did you get it?”

“How did you separate it from him, Bordin?”

“We didn’t, Brightlord. He just dropped it.”

“And it didn’t vanish away? Not bonded, then. He couldn’t have had it for long. Were his eyes this color when you found him?”

“Yes, sir. A darkeyed man with a Shardblade. Odd sight, that.”

“I will train your soldiers. We should have time. Ishar keeps talking about a way to keep information from being lost following Desolations. And you have discovered something unexpected. We will use that. Surgebinders to act as guardians . . . Knights . . .”

“He’s said this all before, Your Majesty. When he mumbles, uh, he just keeps at it. Over and over. I don’t think he even knows what he’s saying. Eerie, how his expression doesn’t change as he talks.”

“That is an Alethi accent.”

“He looks like he’s been living in the wild for some time, with that long hair and those broken nails. Perhaps a villager lost their mad father.”

“And the Blade, Elhokar?”