Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
Navani entered and pulled the thick drapings closed over the doorway, tying them tightly in place. This room was heaped with furniture, chairs lining the walls, rolled rugs stacked atop them. There was even a standing mirror. The images of twisting windspren along its sides bore the distinctly rounded look of something that had been carved first from weevilwax, then Soulcast into hardwood.
They had deposited all this here for him, as if worried about their highprince living in simple stone quarters. “Let’s have someone clear this out for me tomorrow,” Dalinar said. “There’s room enough for it in the chamber next door, which we can turn into a sitting room or a common room.”
Navani nodded as she settled onto one of the sofas—he saw her reflected in the mirror—her hand still casually uncovered, gown dropping to the side, exposing neck, collarbone, and some of what was beneath. She wasn’t trying to be seductive right now; she was merely comfortable around him. Intimately familiar, past the point where she felt embarrassed for him to see her uncovered.
It was good that one of them was willing to take the initiative in the relationship. For all his impatience to advance on the battlefield, this was one area in which he’d always needed encouragement. Same as it had been all those years ago …
“When I married last,” Dalinar said softly, “I did many things wrong. I started wrong.”
“I wouldn’t say that. You married Shshshsh for her Shardplate, but many marriages are for political reasons. That doesn’t mean you were wrong. If you’ll recall, we all encouraged you to do it.”
As always, when he heard his dead wife’s name, the word was replaced to his hearing with a breezy sound of rushing air—the name couldn’t gain purchase in his mind, any more than a man could hold to a gust of wind.
“I’m not trying to replace her, Dalinar,” Navani said, suddenly sounding concerned. “I know you still have affection for Shshshsh. It’s all right. I can share you with her memory.”
Oh, how little they all understood. He turned toward Navani, set his jaw against the pain, and said it.
“I don’t remember her, Navani.”
She looked to him with a frown, as if she thought she hadn’t heard him correctly.
“I can’t remember my wife at all,” he said. “I don’t know her face. Portraits of her are a fuzzy smudge to my eyes. Her name is taken from me whenever spoken, like someone has plucked it away. I don’t remember what she and I said when we first met; I can’t even remember seeing her at the feast that night when she first arrived. It’s all a blur. I can remember some events surrounding my wife, but nothing of the actual details. It’s all just … gone.”
Navani raised her safehand fingers to her mouth, and from the way her brow knit with concern, he figured he must look like he was in agony.
He slumped down in a chair across from her.
“The alcohol?” she asked softly.
“Something more.”
She breathed out. “The Old Magic. You said you knew both your boon and your curse.”
He nodded.
“Oh, Dalinar.”
“People glance at me when her name comes up,” Dalinar continued, “and they give me these looks of pity. They see me keeping a stiff expression, and they assume I’m being stoic. They infer hidden pain, when really I’m just trying to keep up. It’s hard to follow a conversation where half of it keeps slipping away from your brain.
“Navani, maybe I did grow to love her. I can’t remember. Not one moment of intimacy, not one fight, not a single word she ever said to me. She’s gone, leaving debris that mars my memory. I can’t remember how she died. That one gets to me, because there are parts of that day I know I should remember. Something about a city in rebellion against my brother, and my wife being taken hostage?”
That … and a long march alone, accompanied only by hatred and the Thrill. He remembered those emotions vividly. He’d brought vengeance to those who had taken his wife from him.
Navani settled down on the seat beside Dalinar, resting her head on his shoulder. “Would that I could create a fabrial,” she whispered, “to take away this kind of pain.”
“I think … I think losing her must have hurt me terribly,” Dalinar whispered, “because of what it drove me to do. I am left with only the scars. Regardless, Navani, I want it to be right with us. No mistakes. Done properly, with oaths, spoken to you before someone.”
“Mere words.”
“Words are the most important things in my life right now.”
She parted her lips, thoughtful. “Elhokar?”
“I wouldn’t want to put him in that position.”
“A foreign priest? From the Azish, maybe? They’re almost Vorin.”
“That would be tantamount to declaring myself a heretic. It goes too far. I will not defy the Vorin church.” He paused. “I might be willing to sidestep it though.…”
“What?” she asked.
He looked upward, toward the ceiling. “Maybe we go to someone with authority greater than theirs.”
“You want a spren to marry us?” she said, sounding amused. “Using a foreign priest would be heretical, but not a spren?”
“The Stormfather is the largest remnant of Honor,” Dalinar said. “He’s a sliver of the Almighty himself—and is the closest thing to a god we have left.”
“Oh, I’m not objecting,” Navani said. “I’d let a confused dishwasher marry us. I just think it’s a little unusual.”
“It’s the best we’re going to get, assuming he is willing.” He looked to Navani, then raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
“Is that a proposal?”
“… Yes?”
“Dalinar Kholin,” she said. “Surely you can do better.”
He rested his hand on the back of her head, touching her black hair, which she had left loose. “Better than you, Navani? No, I don’t think that I could. I don’t think that any man has ever had a chance better than this.”
She smiled, and her only reply was a kiss.
* * *
Dalinar was surprisingly nervous as, several hours later, he rode one of Urithiru’s strange fabrial lifts toward the roof of the tower. The lift resembled a balcony, one of many that lined a vast open shaft in the middle of Urithiru—a columnar space as wide as a ballroom, which stretched up from the first floor to the last one.
The tiers of the city, despite looking circular from the front, were actually more half-circles, with the flat sides facing east. The edges of the lower levels melded into the mountains to either side, but the very center was open to the east. The rooms up against that flat side had windows there, providing a view toward the Origin.
And here, in this central shaft, those windows made up one wall. A pure, single unbroken pane of glass hundreds of feet tall. In the day, that lit the shaft with brilliant sunlight. Now, it was dark with the gloom of night.
The balcony crawled steadily along a vertical trench in the wall; Adolin and Renarin rode with him, along with a few guards and Shallan Davar. Navani was already up above. The group stood on the other side of the balcony, giving him space to think. And to be nervous.
Why should he be nervous? He could hardly keep his hands from shaking. Storms. You’d think he was some silk-covered virgin, not a general well into his middle years.
He felt a rumbling deep within him. The Stormfather was being responsive at the moment, for which he was grateful.
“I’m surprised,” Dalinar whispered to the spren, “you agreed to this so willingly. Grateful, but still surprised.”
I respect all oaths, the Stormfather responded.
“What about foolish oaths? Made in haste, or in ignorance?”
There are no foolish oaths. All are the mark of men and true spren over beasts and subspren. The mark of intelligence, free will, and choice.
Dalinar chewed on that, and found he was not surprised by the extreme opinion. Spren should be extreme; they were forces of nature. But was this how Honor himself, the Almighty, had thought?
The balcony ground its inexorable way toward the top of the tower. Only a handful of the dozens of lifts worked; back when Urithiru flourished, they all would have been going at once. They passed level after level of unexplored space, which bothered Dalinar. Making this his fortress was like camping in an unknown land.
The lift finally reached the top floor, and his guards scrambled to open the gates. Those were from Bridge Thirteen these days—he’d assigned Bridge Four to other responsibilities, considering them too important for simple guard duty, now that they were close to becoming Radiants.
Increasingly anxious, Dalinar led the way past several pillars designed with representations of the orders of Radiants. A set of steps took him up through a trapdoor onto the very roof of the tower.
Although each tier was smaller than the one below it, this roof was still over a hundred yards wide. It was cold up here, but someone had set up braziers for warmth and torches for light. The night was strikingly clear, and high above, starspren swirled and made distant patterns.
Dalinar wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that no one—not even his sons—had questioned him when he’d announced his intent to marry in the middle of the night, on the roof of the tower. He searched out Navani, and was shocked to see that she’d found a traditional bridal crown. The intricate headdress of jade and turquoise complemented her wedding gown. Red for luck, it was embroidered with gold and shaped in a much looser style than the havah, with wide sleeves and a graceful drape.
Should Dalinar have found something more traditional to wear himself? He suddenly felt like a dusty, empty frame hung beside the gorgeous painting that was Navani in her wedding regalia.
Elhokar stiffly stood at her side wearing a formal golden coat and loose takama underskirt. He was paler than normal, following the failed assassination attempt during the Weeping, where he’d nearly bled to death. He’d been resting a great deal lately.
Though they’d decided to forgo the extravagance of a traditional Alethi wedding, they had invited some others. Brightlord Aladar and his daughter, Sebarial and his mistress. Kalami and Teshav to act as witnesses. He felt relieved to see them there—he’d feared Navani would be unable to find women willing to notarize the wedding.
A smattering of Dalinar’s officers and scribes filled out the small procession. At the very back of the crowd gathered between the braziers, he spotted a surprising face. Kadash, the ardent, had come as requested. His scarred, bearded face didn’t look pleased, but he had come. A good sign. Perhaps with everything else happening in the world, a highprince marrying his widowed sister-in-law wouldn’t cause too much of a stir.
Dalinar stepped up to Navani and took her hands, one shrouded in a sleeve, the other warm to his touch. “You look amazing,” he said. “How did you find that?”
“A lady must be prepared.”
Dalinar looked to Elhokar, who bowed his head to Dalinar. This will further muddy the relationship between us, Dalinar thought, reading the same sentiment on his nephew’s features.
Gavilar would not appreciate how his son had been handled. Despite his best intentions, Dalinar had trodden down the boy and seized power. Elhokar’s time recuperating had worsened the situation, as Dalinar had grown accustomed to making decisions on his own.
However, Dalinar would be lying to himself if he said that was where it had begun. His actions had been done for the good of Alethkar, for the good of Roshar itself, but that didn’t deny the fact that—step by step—he’d usurped the throne, despite claiming all along he had no intention of doing so.
Dalinar let go of Navani with one hand and rested it on his nephew’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, son,” he said.
“You always are, Uncle,” Elhokar said. “It doesn’t stop you, but I don’t suppose that it should. Your life is defined by deciding what you want, then seizing it. The rest of us could learn from that, if only we could figure out how to keep up.”
Dalinar winced. “I have things to discuss with you. Plans that you might appreciate. But for tonight, I simply ask your blessing, if you can find it to give.”
“This will make my mother happy,” Elhokar said. “So, fine.” Elhokar kissed his mother on the forehead, then left them, striding across the rooftop. At first Dalinar worried the king would stalk down below, but he stopped beside one of the more distant braziers, warming his hands.
“Well,” Navani said. “The only one missing is your spren, Dalinar. If he’s going to—”
A strong breeze struck the top of the tower, carrying with it the scent of recent rainfall, of wet stone and broken branches. Navani gasped, pulling against Dalinar.
A presence emerged in the sky. The Stormfather encompassed everything, a face that stretched to both horizons, regarding the men imperiously. The air became strangely still, and everything but the tower’s top seemed to fade. It was as if they had slipped into a place outside of time itself.
Lighteyes and guards alike murmured or cried out. Even Dalinar, who had been expecting this, found himself taking a step backward—and he had to fight the urge to cringe down before the spren.
OATHS, the Stormfather rumbled, ARE THE SOUL OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. IF YOU ARE TO SURVIVE THE COMING TEMPEST, OATHS MUST GUIDE YOU.
“I am comfortable with oaths, Stormfather,” Dalinar called up to him. “As you know.”
YES. THE FIRST IN MILLENNIA TO BIND ME. Somehow, Dalinar felt the spren’s attention shifting to Navani. AND YOU. DO OATHS HOLD MEANING TO YOU?
“The right oaths,” Navani said.
AND YOUR OATH TO THIS MAN?
“I swear it to him, and to you, and any who care to listen. Dalinar Kholin is mine, and I am his.”
YOU HAVE BROKEN OATHS BEFORE.
“All people have,” Navani said, unbowed. “We’re frail and foolish. This one I will not break. I vow it.”
The Stormfather seemed content with this, though it was far from a traditional Alethi wedding oath. BONDSMITH? he asked.
“I swear it likewise,” Dalinar said, holding to her. “Navani Kholin is mine, and I am hers. I love her.”
SO BE IT.
Dalinar had anticipated thunder, lightning, some kind of celestial trump of victory. Instead, the timelessness ended. The breeze passed. The Stormfather vanished. All through the gathered guests, smoky blue awespren rings burst out above heads. But not Navani’s. Instead she was ringed by gloryspren, the golden lights rotating above her head. Nearby, Sebarial rubbed his temple—as if trying to understand what he’d seen. Dalinar’s new guards sagged, looking suddenly exhausted.
Adolin, being Adolin, let out a whoop. He ran over, trailing joyspren in the shape of blue leaves that hurried to keep up with him. He gave Dalinar—then Navani—enormous hugs. Renarin followed, more reserved but—judging from the wide grin on his face—equally pleased.
The next part became a blur, shaking hands, speaking words of thanks. Insisting that no gifts were needed, as they’d skipped that part of the traditional ceremony. It seemed that the Stormfather’s pronouncement had been dramatic enough that everyone accepted it. Even Elhokar, despite his earlier pique, gave his mother a hug and Dalinar a clasp on the shoulder before going below.
That left only Kadash. The ardent waited to the end. He stood with hands clasped before him as the rooftop emptied.
To Dalinar, Kadash had always looked wrong in those robes. Though he wore the traditional squared beard, it was not an ardent that Dalinar saw. It was a soldier, with a lean build, dangerous posture, and keen light violet eyes. He had a twisting old scar running up to and around the top of his shaved head. Kadash’s life might now be one of peace and service, but his youth had been spent at war.
Dalinar whispered a few words of promise to Navani, and she left him to go to the level below, where she’d ordered food and wine to be set up. Dalinar stepped over to Kadash, confident. The pleasure of having finally done what he’d postponed for so long surged through him. He was married to Navani. This was a joy that he’d assumed lost to him since h
He would not apologize for it, or for her.
“Brightlord,” Kadash said quietly.
“Formality, old friend?”
“I wish I could only be here as an old friend,” Kadash said softly. “I have to report this, Dalinar. The ardentia will not be pleased.”
“Surely they cannot deny my marriage if the Stormfather himself blessed the union.”
“A spren? You expect us to accept the authority of a spren?”
“A remnant of the Almighty.”
“Dalinar, that’s blasphemy,” Kadash said, voice pained.
“Kadash. You know I’m no heretic. You’ve fought by my side.”
“That’s supposed to reassure me? Memories of what we did together, Dalinar? I appreciate the man you have become; you should avoid reminding me of the man you once were.”
Dalinar paused, and a memory swirled up from the depths inside him—one he hadn’t thought of in years. One that surprised him. Where had it come from?
He remembered Kadash, bloodied, kneeling on the ground having retched until his stomach was empty. A hardened soldier who had encountered something so vile that even he was shaken.
He’d left to become an ardent the next day.
“The Rift,” Dalinar whispered. “Rathalas.”
“Dark times need not be dredged up,” Kadash said. “This isn’t about … that day, Dalinar. It’s about today, and what you’ve been spreading among the scribes. Talk of these things you’ve seen in visions.”
“Holy messages,” Dalinar said, feeling cold. “Sent by the Almighty.”
“Holy messages claiming the Almighty is dead?” Kadash said. “Arriving on the eve of the return of the Voidbringers? Dalinar, can’t you see how this looks? I’m your ardent, technically your slave. And yes, perhaps still your friend. I’ve tried to explain to the councils in Kharbranth and Jah Keved that you mean well. I tell the ardents of the Holy Enclave that you’re looking back toward when the Knights Radiant were pure, rather than their eventual corruption. I tell them that you have no control over these visions.