That would not have been a difficult task for Shallan. Radiant, however, preferred not to feel things she hadn’t considered in depth beforehand.

“Have you considered,” she said, “that your Shardblade was once a living spren, wielded by one of the Knights Radiant? Doesn’t that change how you look at it?”

Adolin glanced toward his Blade, which he’d left summoned, strapped with the sheath and set across her blankets. “I’ve always kind of known. Not that it was alive. That’s silly. Swords aren’t alive. I mean … I’ve always known there was something special about them. It’s part of being a duelist, I think. We all know it.”

She let the matter drop. Swordsmen, from what she’d seen, were superstitious. As were sailors. As were … well, basically everyone but scholars like Radiant and Jasnah. It was curious to her how much of Adolin’s rhetoric about Blades and dueling reminded her of religion.

How strange that these Alethi often treated their actual religion so flippantly. In Jah Keved, Shallan had spent hours painting lengthy passages from the Arguments. You’d speak the words out loud over and over, committing them to memory while kneeling or bowing, before finally burning the paper. The Alethi instead preferred to let the ardents deal with the Almighty, like he was some annoying parlor guest who could be safely distracted by servants offering a particularly tasty tea.

Adolin let her do some more strikes, perhaps sensing that she was growing tired of having her stance constantly adjusted. As she was swinging, he grabbed his own Blade and fell in beside her, modeling the stance and the strikes.

After a short time of that she dismissed her Blade, then picked up her sketchbook. She quickly flipped past the drawing of Radiant, and started to sketch Adolin in his stance. She was forced to let some of Radiant bleed away.

“No, stand there,” Shallan said, pointing at Adolin with her charcoal. “Yes, like that.”

She sketched out the stance, then nodded. “Now strike, and hold the last position.”

He did so. By now he’d removed his jacket, standing in only shirt and trousers. She did like how that tight shirt fit him. Even Radiant would admire that. She wasn’t dead, just pragmatic.

She looked over the two sketches, then resummoned Pattern and fell into position.

“Hey, nice,” Adolin said as Radiant performed the next few strikes. “Yeah, you’ve got it.”

He again fell in beside her. The simple attack he’d taught her was obviously a poor test of his skills, but he executed it with precision nonetheless, then grinned and started talking about the first few lessons he’d had with Zahel long ago.

His blue eyes were alight, and Shallan loved seeing that glow from him. Almost like Stormlight. She knew that passion—she’d felt what it was to be alive with interest, to be consumed by something so fully that you lost yourself in the wonder of it. For her it was art, but watching him, she thought that the two of them weren’t so different.

Sharing these moments with him and drinking of his excitement felt special. Intimate. Even more so than their closeness had been earlier in the evening. She let herself be Shallan in some of the moments, but whenever the pain of holding the sword started to spike—whenever she really thought about what she was doing—she was able to become Radiant and avoid it.

She was genuinely reluctant to see the time end, so she let it stretch into the late evening, well past when she should have called a halt. At long last, Shallan bade a tired, sweaty farewell to Adolin and watched him trot down the strata-lined hallway outside, a spring to his step, a lamp in his hands, blade guards held on his shoulder.

Shallan would have to wait another night to visit taverns and hunt for answers. She trailed back into her room—strangely contented for all that the world might be in the middle of ending. That night she slept, for once, in peace.

For in this comes the lesson.

—From Oathbringer, preface

A legend rested on the stone slab before Dalinar. A weapon pulled from the ancient mists of time, and said to have been forged during the shadowdays by the hand of God himself. The Blade of the Assassin in White, claimed by Kaladin Stormblessed during their clash above the storm.

Upon cursory inspection, it was indistinguishable from an ordinary Shardblade. Elegant, relatively small—in that it was barely five feet long—it was thin and curved like a tusk. It had patterns only at the base of the blade near the hilt.

He’d lit it with four diamond broams, placed at the corners of the altarlike stone slab. This small room had no strata or paintings on the walls, so the Stormlight lit only him and that alien Blade. It did have one oddity.

There was no gemstone.

Gemstones were what allowed men to bond to Shardblades. Often affixed at the pommel, though occasionally at the spot where hilt met blade, the gem would flash when you first touched it, initiating the process. Keep the Blade with you for a week, and the Blade became yours—dismissible and returnable in time with your heartbeat.

This Blade didn’t have one. Dalinar hesitantly reached out and rested his fingers on its silvery length. It was warm to the touch, like something alive.

“It doesn’t scream when I touch it,” he noted.

The knights, the Stormfather said in his head, broke their oaths. They abandoned everything they’d sworn, and in so doing killed their spren. Other Blades are the corpses of those spren, which is why they scream at your touch. This weapon, instead, was made directly from Honor’s soul, then given to the Heralds. It is also the mark of an oath, but a different type—and does not have the mind to scream on its own.

“And Shardplate?” Dalinar asked.

Related, but different, the Stormfather rumbled. You haven’t spoken the oaths required to know more.

“You cannot break oaths,” Dalinar said, fingers still resting on the Honorblade. “Right?”

I cannot.

“What of the thing we fight? Odium, the origin of the Voidbringers and their spren. Can he break oaths?”

No, the Stormfather said. He is far greater than I, but the power of ancient Adonalsium permeates him. And controls him. Odium is a force like pressure, gravitation, or the movement of time. These things cannot break their own rules. Nor can he.

Dalinar tapped the Honorblade. A fragment of Honor’s own soul, crystallized into metallic form. In a way, the death of their god gave him hope—for if Honor had fallen, surely Odium could as well.

In visions, Honor had left Dalinar with a task. Vex Odium, convince him that he can lose, and appoint a champion. He will take that chance instead of risking defeat again, as he has suffered so often. This is the best advice I can give you.

“I’ve seen that the enemy is preparing a champion,” Dalinar said. “A dark creature with red eyes and nine shadows. Will Honor’s suggestion work? Can I make Odium agree to a decisive contest between me and that champion?”

Of course Honor’s suggestion would work, the Stormfather said. He spoke it.

“I mean,” Dalinar said, “why would it work? Why would this Odium ever agree to a contest of champions? It seems too momentous a matter to risk on something so small and inferior as the prowess and will of men.”

Your enemy is not a man like you, the Stormfather replied, voice rumbling, thoughtful. Even … frightened. He does not age. He feels. He is angry. But this does not change, and his rage does not cool. Epochs can pass, and he will remain the same.