Under Lock and Key

by ChecktheCeiling

Summary:

An alternative title that says it all: “Words of Revolution AU”

Kaladin stumbles into Adolin during his confrontation with Sadeas.
It is the spark that lights the timber, the cremling that flaps its wings.
Caught in the winds of fate, our protagonists again find themselves at the forefront, cresting a wave of change that has been building for far, far too long.
Dare they let it crash down, destroying everything they have known so far?
Dare they let it hang there, shadowing everything they have hated for so long?
Is it even their choice to make?

Notes:

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has helped me with the outline and more! You're the best!

Chapter 1: Cremlings Scuttle (Adolin, Kaladin)

Notes:

Posted 2025/1/14

It had all started with Sadeas. Of course.

------

Adolin trudged along the chasm floor, trying not to let the corpses spoil his least favorite boots. The search party was behind him, Adolin having outpaced them because he wasn’t scouring every cranny for the remains of a highprince.

Personally, Sadeas dying like a trapped cremling did not bother Adolin in the least. The highprince had gone missing after a chasmfiend attack, during a plateau run he wasn’t even supposed to be on. That’ll show those backstabbing cremlings, Adolin thought as he stepped over a dead bridgeman. Pity the chasmfiend missed most of Sadeas’s troops.

As he stewed over being dragged out into this filth as part of the inter-camp searching rotation, a fate shared by most Kholin officers, Adolin made a right turn.

And stumbled into a person wearing cracked red Shardplate.

Adolin took a few steps back. Sadeas flailed a little and landed on his rear. The ground squelched under him.

“You!” Adolin said.

Sadeas sniffed. It sounded more like a sniffle. “Young Adolin. What a pity you were the one to find me.”

Adolin lent his arm to the haggard highprince. “You should be glad anybody is searching for you at all.”

“I will admit, your father adapted quickly,” the Shardbearer said as he slowly clanked upright. “Even sending his son as a sign of concern. Suspicion must be high among the other highprinces for him to resort to such methods.”

“You can’t possibly believe my father was behind this accident.”

“It is possible,” Sadeas said, “That he wanted more to intimidate me than kill me. Coincidental, is it not? First the king, attacked while on a hunt, only barely surviving because Dalinar stepped in. Then me, brought back by his own heir. One has to wonder, which one of his political rivals shall be next in his self-aggrandizing play at heroism?”

Sadeas smiled, and Adolin saw the truth. No, he didn’t believe this, but it was the lie he would tell. He would become the whisper in the room, the shadow in the mirror, the doubt and suspicion trailing every one of his father’s steps.

“Why?” Adolin asked as they rounded another bend, the sounds of the search party fading even further behind. “Why are you like this, Sadeas?”

“Because,” Sadeas said with a sigh, “it has to happen. You can’t have an army with two generals, son. Your father and I, we’re two old whitespines who both want a kingdom. It’s him or me. We’ve been pointed that way since Gavilar died.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“It does. Your father will never trust me again, Adolin, and you know it.” Sadeas’s face darkened. “He has already lost the kingdom. I will turn it against him.”

Adolin stood for a moment, staring Sadeas in the eyes, and then something finally snapped.

That’s it.

Adolin summoned his Blade, and stabbed towards the unsuspecting man’s face. However, unlike Adolin, Sadeas was in Plate, and he managed to dodge sidewards, Adolin’s Shardblade glancing off the gorget. It seemed that gluttony and greed hadn’t completely destroyed the reflexes of a former duelist, for Sadeas summoned his Shardblade—Oathbringer—in one smooth motion, and settled into Vinestance as he met Adolin’s next blow.

------

Kaladin paused around the corner, one hand resting on the chasm wall, feeling as if its familiar coolness were his last remaining tether to reality.

He’d reasoned with the frillblooms, screamed up at the sky, plead with the fallen.

It was no use. Syl was silent, as had been the case ever since his release from incarceration days ago. He’d heard metal on metal and mistaken it for another of his dark imaginings, until there came one very loud very lewd curse that was definitely beyond Kaladin’s imagination.

Leveling his spear, Kaladin burst around the bend.

To see the greatest Shardbearer brawl since Adolin jumped Green Plate.

Notes:

Feeling slightly guilty for calling 650 words a chapter, so posted the next one as well!

Chapter 2: Lights Silence (Adolin)

Notes:

Posted 2025/1/14

“Help me,” Adolin grunted, kneeling over Sadeas, knife quivering as it hung poised to take the highprince by the eye.

“Help me,” Sadeas squeaked, pinned under Adolin, arms straining as they labored against the weight of drained Plate.

Kaladin didn’t move. Adolin glanced at the frozen man, and Sadeas took the chance to heave upwards, throwing Adolin off balance. His father’s Blade swung for him like judgement itself, too large to dodge in the narrow confines of the chasm. Adolin pressed himself flat against the ground, waited till the Blade was but a hair’s breadth from grazing his chin, and slapped the flat of the Blade aside with his side knife, knocking Oathbringer to the left to scrape along the chasm floor. With a desperate cry, Sadeas swung again, but just as Adolin’s Shardblade dropped into his hands, there was a dull crack and Oathbringer puffed into mist.

Panting slightly, Adolin looked up. He met Kaladin’s eyes as the guard removed the butt of his spear from the side of Sadeas’s head.

“Why did you leave your guards behind?” Kaladin demanded. “His attack could have been fatal!”

“I can take care of myself just fine,” Adolin said, blood rising to his cheeks. “Besides, thought I would do you a favor.”

“I don’t need one of your favors,” the bridgeman said. “What happened?”

Adolin hesitated. Should he admit that he had been on the offensive? Why not, he thought. Surely Kaladin hates Sadeas with at least as much vehemence. “I tried to kill Sadeas,” Adolin said in a low voice.

Kaladin’s eyes widened, and he looked at Adolin as if seeing him for the first time, a gaze that made Adolin shiver. Then he turned and knelt down next to Sadeas, putting a hand under the unconscious man’s nose to check his breathing.

Sadeas’s hand twitched.

One.

“Kaladin,” Adolin said.

Two.

Kaladin ignored him, probing gently at the highprince’s neck.

Three.

Sadeas’s eyes fluttered open.

Four.

He snarled at the sight of Kaladin, who leaned back but did not move away.

Five.

Adolin fumbled for his belt knife, but it must have skittered away in the fighting.

Six.

Silvery mist began to coalesce in Adolin’s hand.

Seven.

Sadeas grabbed Kaladin’s arm, trying to pull him downward, the other hand curling around a translucent hilt.

Eight.

The Shardblade dropped into Adolin’s hand. Months of practice came to fruition as Adolin threw his Blade, the elegant weapon carving an effortless arc through the air to embed itself in Sadeas’s chest. The highprince stiffened, then drooped, arms splaying bonelessly in a gesture not so different from acceptance.

A dazed silence settled over them, not weighted enough to stop twin wisps of smoke from dissipating into the heavens, but heavy enough to force an exhale from Adolin’s lips. Oathbringer clanged to the ground by the corpse, but neither of them moved.

“There,” Adolin eventually said, voice unsteady.

Slowly, Kaladin stood up and stepped away from the corpse.

“We have to report this.”

Adolin looked at the captain, incredulous. “Why—But you’d implicate yourself!” 

“As well I should. Stormfather, Adolin, you just killed a highprince.”

They stared at each other. The sky cast a thin strip of sunlight upon Kaladin’s face, the shadows his eyelashes made rendering his irises a patchwork of golds and deep browns, light and dark. Much like the Shattered Plains themselves.

“Look,” Adolin said. “Exposing what I’ve done, what we’ve done would only ruin House Kholin and further Sadeas’ quest.” His thoughts began to come more clearly. “Think of all the bridgeman that died thanks to Sadeas, Kaladin. Do you want to serve the cause of someone like that?”

The muscles in Kaladin’s jaw twitched. Behind him, a cremling crawled its way up the wall, and disappeared into a crevice.

“Fine,” he finally muttered. “For them. Not us.” He noticed Adolin moving to take Oathbringer, and stopped his arm. “Somebody would recognize those Shards and accuse the Kholins of assassination,” Kaladin said. “Leave it.” Adolin was about to object, but paused when he heard something. Beside him, Kaladin tensed.

Light shone out from beyond the bend as footsteps and calls started to echo among the chasms. As the main body of the search party approached, the sounds became more and more distinct, and Adolin could make out individual voices. His officers. His men. His friends.

A singular, crystalline eternity passed.

And then they ran. 

Heart and feet pounding in tandem, they ran until the glow of spheres faded into shadows, until the sound of conversation died into silence.

Eventually, they would circle back and be reunited with the light and laughter.

But for now, they ran.

Notes:

Adolin: Wait, I look like I was in a fight. I can’t go back like this!
Kaladin: Tell them you killed a chasmfiend.
Adolin: …
Kaladin: …
Kaladin: Fine. (rolls in a pool of muck)(drags himself along a chasm wall)
(ten minutes later)
Colot: Brightlord Adolin! We were getting worried.
Colot: Sir, you look…worse for wear.
Adolin: (gestures to Kaladin) We decided to match our skills against one another.
Colot: Oh.
Colot: …Who won?
(My cremposting brain is writing cremfic for my own fanfic. I'm sorry.)

Chapter 3: Plate Deflects (Kaladin)

Notes:

Posted 2025/1/18

The warcamps were in turmoil. A highprince being assassinated was gossip enough for one year. A highprince being killed by a Shardblade, and being left with his Blade and Plate? That narrowed suspicion down to a handful of individuals, all of them rich or powerful or both.

Except for one.

Moash, Kholin’s new Shardbearer, only recently a darkeyed bridgeman under Sadeas.

------

Kaladin nodded to Leyten and Teft as he relieved them from the afternoon shift. “Get some rest, men.”

“You too, lad.” Teft said as they walked off. “You look like you need it.”

Now alone in front of Adolin’s door, Kaladin knocked. There was the sound of a lock jiggling, and the door swung inwards, revealing a man wearing a white mask that clung to his skin.

Kaladin stepped back in alarm, grip already shifting on his spear, until he recognized the mop of blonde and black hair.

“What?” The masked man said. “I like my skin smooth and supple, as opposed to wind-blown and parched.” He looked pointedly at Kaladin.

“Couldn’t expect anything less,” Kaladin said. He stepped in, and Adolin closed the door.

“So,” Adolin said, settling into a couch and gesturing for Kaladin to do the same, “Are we going to talk about it? The rumors?”

“More than rumors. The lighteyes are clamoring for a trial, princeling. Not trials–a trial.” Kaladin tried to keep his back straight while sitting, but that was hard whilst waist deep in cushion.

“Bah. Let there be a trial! Without evidence, there’ll be no conviction. Trust me, it’ll blow over in a few weeks.”

Trust. Kaladin’s experience with Amaram told him that evidence could be a subjective thing indeed, but explain that to Adolin. “The truth of Sadeas’s death doesn’t have to be admitted publicly, you realize,” he said instead. “Just us and your father. Then the Kholin reputation holds, and Moash and Bridge Four get an official backing.” And I would bear most of the blame for the assassination, he added to himself, because that’s how lighteyes work. But better me than Moash.

He waited as Adolin steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them, thinking. On one hand, Kaladin was grateful that Adolin had protected him from harm. On the other, Adolin’s original motivations for assassinating Sadeas, that of spite, were what had caused this mess in the first place. It left him both wanting to press the issue and feeling unqualified to do so. Finally, Adolin shook his head. “I can’t. It would disappoint my father.”

Kaladin snorted. “You’re walking in Dalinar’s very footprints. What else could he ask for?”

Adolin’s glass of orange paused halfway to his lips. Then he smiled. “Why, bridgeboy, it’s almost as if you like me!”

“Why do you call me that?”

“What, ‘bridgeboy’? It’s an endearment.”

Kaladin hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Call me Kal instead.”

“All right,” Adolin said slowly, nodding. Then the storming man broke into a grin. “Do keep calling me princeling though,” he said, “It’s a welcome break from ‘Brightlord Adolin Kholin’.”

Kaladin grunted. “Suit yourself.”

A silence lapsed, during which Adolin offered Kaladin some wine, which he refused. After a while, Kaladin said quietly, “You can’t stop me from speaking to Dalinar, Adolin.”

“I can’t. It’s your choice. But I can assure you that it would do no good, only harm.” Adolin swished his drink, then took a sip. “I’ll do all I can to protect Moash. Ask for a private trial, away from the other lighteyes, just our inner circle. It’ll be fine, Kal. You’ll see.”

It was an optimism that stemmed from not only personality but also experience. But the only other option was seeking out Dalinar, and after how he’d dismissed and ultimately denied Kaladin’s claims regarding Amaram, Kaladin was hesitant to try again.

“I’ll hold you to that, Kholin.”

As he walked out, Kaladin again tried to suck in Stormlight from a hallway fixture.

It refused him.

------

Absently, Kaladin speared a piece of pork on his dinner knife. It fell apart with a wet squish not that different from the sound of a popping eyeball. “Moash, would you sit down?”

“I can’t,” Moash said, Shardplate clanking as he paced across the dining chamber. Kaladin still found it strange that Moash had a dining chamber. “I have to do something, Kal. I’m not going to sit here and wait while the lighteyes try to take away what we’ve earned.”

“As I’ve said, it’s taken care of. The Alethi legal system differentiates between a trial and an audience with the king. Adolin—"

“The Alethi legal system,” Moash spat. “Adolin. Listen to yourself! You’ve spent too long in their midst. The lighteyes don’t care about what is right. They only pretend to when it’s convenient!”

“And you don’t? Don’t pretend that assassinating the king would be right, Moash. Stop fixating on eye color, and see the bigger picture!”

“Quiet!” Moash said, looking around nervously. “Storms, Kaladin, do you want us to be caught?”

“Do you trust me?”

The Shardbearer rested both hands on the table, and they locked gazes. With a shock, Kaladin realized that Moash’s eyes were lighter, almost tan. “You’re leaving me here while you go on patrol.”

“Do you trust me, Moash?”

“You promised me you were on our side.”

Kaladin said nothing. Moash sighed, breaking their gaze. 

“I do. Storm me for a fool, but I do.”

Chapter 4: Formalities Whine (Adolin, Moash)

Notes:

Posted 2025/1/24

They conversed a few more times after that, but as Adolin set off for Moash’s private trial, or, as they called it, audience, with the king, he was glad Kaladin wasn’t there to glare smoldering holes into the back of his head.

When he arrived, his father and aunt, Elhokar, General Khal and his wife Teshav, as well as a few other scribes were already seated. Adolin settled into a sofa, fingers nervously playing over the armrest.

“So,” he asked, “Where’s our man?”

------

Two unfamiliar guards escorted Moash towards the private meeting chamber. He recognized the room, had spent many a backbreaking hour at the doors wondering what the lighteyes were up to, and feeling unhappy that only Kaladin was allowed inside. Now his guilt was the key that unlocked those elaborately carved doors, Sigzil, who nodded in acknowledgment, on one side, and Drehy, who gave him a Bridge Four salute, on the other. Moash only pursed his lips in response. Kaladin wasn’t here. Kaladin couldn’t bother to be here.

Stop it, he told himself. Kal said it’s just a formality.

One of the guards gestured for him to kneel. Moash gritted his teeth, but did as he was told, bowing his head before the king. A lighteyes with a pinched face started reading out legal codes. Moash wanted to listen, but it felt like a thousand stones were being piled onto his back, making it hard to breathe, let alone think. The repetitive jargon started to jumble together, into one, monotonous, whine. It was the sound of the silence in his childhood home, the buzzing in his ears as the soldier whacked him on the side of the head and told him to report to Gaz, the whistle of Parshendi and human arrows shooting past his face. Omnipresent, intangible, suffocating, the room whined.

“…that case, a Shardbearer traditionally has two choices: execution, or exile.”

Moash’s head snapped up.

------

“Keep your head down, darkeyes,” Elhokar said, chin propped lazily on one elbow. 

Moash continued staring up at Elhokar. 

Adolin felt something building in the room, and it annoyed him that he wasn’t able to pinpoint what it was. He was good at reading social situations, wasn’t he? He grasped at the nagging feeling at the back of his mind, the muffled whisper just out of earshot, and was left frustrated and empty-handed. 

He forced himself to flip to the next page in his folio. But his stomach was a knot of something akin to shame.

------

The whine was growing louder, every word the scribe read amplified by the rush of blood as Moash’s heart ricocheted to a frantic tempo. Two words played over and over in his mind, twin knives driven into bloody palms.

Execution. Exile.

Those two words were a stone, dropped into a quiet lait. There they joined many other such stones, stones and pebbles and rocks and boulders, a hidden cascade built up over millennia.

The scribe adjusted her glasses and continued. The water’s calm surface rippled. Adolin flipped a page in his folio. A slight tremor distorted the edges, the water below rising up to push at the rim. The fingers of Moash’s right hand curled. The border bulged under the tension. Dalinar looked down at him questioningly. The surface trembled, then stilled, a perfect reflection of the world above. Elhokar’s eyes wandered towards the mirror at the back of the room. The surface broke, illusion of calm evaporating as water spilt over the side. Thundering, howling, it built into a wave, and the whine became a deafening roar.

Moash thrust upwards, and a brilliant Shardblade appeared in his hands.

The wave rose above the land, its shadow stretching far and long.

Elhokar reeled, then slumped forward in a mock bow, eyes darker than the blackest tar.

------

Navani’s hands were over her mouth. “Oh,” she said. “Oh!” She moved towards Elhokar, but fell to the floor instead. Numb, legs leaden, Adolin went to her, wrapping his arms around the woman as she shook with shock.

Moash was still standing over Elhokar’s slumped body. With an agonized roar, Adolin’s father rose to his feet, a raging stormwall barely contained. Face taught with grief and body trembling in anger, Dalinar Kholin stretched out one condemning hand. The very air rushed to his call, his Blade dripping a trail of condensation like blood from a dragged corpse as Dalinar stalked towards the bridgeman. A candle flame before the tempest, Moash wavered, desperation, defiance, and despair warring plainly on his face. Then his face set in an emotion that Adolin did not know, and with white-knuckled fingers, Moash raised his Shardblade. 

“For Ana and Da,” He whispered. 

“For Tien and Hearthstone.” 

Then he let out a cry, and clashed with the Blackthorn.

Notes:

Goodbye canon!

Chapter 5: Horses Leap (Kaladin)

Notes:

Posted 2025/1/24

Sixty-five days. The end of all nations.

“Captain!” Somebody called. Kaladin looked up to see two Kholin officers cresting the last hill between the patrol and the Kholin warcamp. Teft nodded at him, and Kaladin nudged his horse to speed up, leaving the company of freed bridgeman behind. “You called for me?” He asked the lighteyed lieutenant. He didn’t answer, but he and his companion adjusted their positions until their mounts flanked Kaladin’s steed on both sides. You’re even more on edge than your horse, Kaladin thought, and crushed a vague sense of foreboding.

They rode in silence. The two kept their eyes forward, and did not offer any information apart from the message that they were acting under the direct orders of Dalinar Kholin. With nothing else to occupy Kaladin’s mind, he began to wonder about the results of Moash’s audience six days earlier. He knew he shouldn’t be worrying, but worry he did. Adolin’s silence, Graves’ plan, Syl’s withdrawal, a thousand uncertainties danced on the paved road into the Kholin warcamp, all possible and none desirable. As doubts crept out like cremlings after a storm, Kaladin acknowledged the cold stone that had been sitting in his stomach the entire patrol, no, ever since he had happened upon Adolin in the chasms.

Change was in the air.

You couldn’t outpace the storm by running away from it.

He should have stayed.

They arrived at the open area neighboring the stables, and Kaladin guided his horse towards where a stablehand waited. He was suddenly aware of just how many soldiers were present in the area. They leaned against the low stone wall, chatted with the staff, well, argued with Jenet, and fingered their weapons—no spears, only swords and halberds—nervously. Teft trotted his mare onto the grounds a few seconds later, apparently having galloped to catch up with Kaladin and his escorts. Stubborn man. If nothing was amiss, he would have left the other bridgemen for nothing. If something was amiss…It was best that Kaladin bear the consequences alone.

Kaladin dismounted and handed away the reins. His escorts didn’t dismount, however, and as he tried to walk off, they cornered him, leaving Kaladin staring at the heaving flank of one horse as he backed into the other. When he moved, they moved with him. It was a hot, humid, suffocating darkness, broken only by irregular gaps of light, like rips in reality. Through those gaps, Kaladin could see more Kholin soldiers crowding them, blocking out the sun, deepening the darkness, trapping him in this strange, oppressive alteration of reality. He turned, knocked into warm flesh, fumbled for his side knife. “What is this?” He demanded. “Speak up!”

“I will speak.” A deep voice said, and in befuddlement that was quickly building into something else, Kaladin watched Dalinar himself walk out from among the soldiers. They parted for him, like a stream before a boulder. 

“You,” Dalinar said, voice hard as steel scraping bone. “You helped kill Elhokar.”

A coldness washed through Kaladin, almost reminiscent of Stormlight, but heavier.

Elhokar…

Elhokar was dead. 

“I—” He began.

“Did you know about Moash?” Dalinar roared, and Kaladin saw rage in those light blue eyes as control slipped and was forgotten. It was the rage of a whitespine lashing out after being wounded by an unseen foe, a tumultuous boil that only sought release. Kaladin saw, remembered, and knew that there was no escape. Dalinar’s verdict was carved in stone, right below those of Amaram and Roshone.

“Yes.” He said quietly.

“Storm you!” Dalinar said. “You were supposed to protect him! Don’t oaths mean anything to you, darkeyes?” Kaladin bowed his head. He’d been too indecisive, too cowardly, too brash. So he welcomed the burden of ignorance, and accepted the consequences with shame.

But Dalinar continued. “And storm me too! The insubordination, the disrespect, the slander, I should have seen it from the start. Elhokar was right about you, and now he’s dead!”

Sadeas is also dead, by the hand of your own son, Kaladin thought. And likely Moash as well. Oh, Moash. The grief and guilt almost made him sink to his knees. How I have failed you.

“You think I haven’t looked up your records? Deserting your highlord to a Shardbearer? Blood of my fathers, you’ve done it again! How you spit on Amaram’s mercy and my trust!”

“But the most important step a man can take is the next. I’ve learned—I won’t allow you the chance to harm others again! Guards, seize him!”

Guards.

Bridge Four. 

Their absence among the guards both relieved and terrified Kaladin. He didn’t know if Dalinar had moved against them as he moved against Kaladin, didn’t know if he had secured their freedom only to consign them to capture. But Kaladin saw three men step forward with chains, and old instincts took over. An oath he’d sworn, under a sky that had been unfairly taken from him, the same sky that watched him now. Nobody will ever do this to me again. Kaladin grabbed his spear. Never again! 

Kaladin bent his knees, slashing the ankles of one horse. He leapt over the fallen animal and its thrashing rider, swept the legs of one soldier out from under him, and brought the butt of his spear to hit the jaw of another man. He spun and ducked a sword as it whistled through the air, snagged the manacles meant for his wrists on the tip of his spear, and whipped them out of the soldier’s grasp. Spear flowing in one hand and manacles spinning in the other, he left the next group that came for him groaning or unconscious on the ground, claimed by the gleefully wiggling painspren. 

Suddenly surrounded by crumpled forms, Kaladin snapped his spear up into a defensive position. Feet planted firmly apart, he waited.

Breathe in. Held aloft like a beacon, the metallic head of his spear shone aflame under the setting sun, vibrant without being stained by blood. 

Breathe out. The soldiers shifted, even drawing a couple of fearspren. But they had trained under the best and weathered the worst, and at the end of it all, Kaladin was just one man.

Three soldiers broke out of the left, five rushed in from the right. No more time to think or wonder, to doubt or hesitate. Kaladin moved. He turned, avoiding one halberd and hitting one man in the knees, then sent another sprawling with a well-aimed kick. The wind didn’t dance with him—instead, his movement created the wind. Kaladin winced as he was forced to stab a man in the arm, then throw his sheathed belt knife to down another. That group retreated, but more piled in to fill the spaces. Kaladin felt a burning sensation followed by blood streak his brands, and was forced to retreat, trying to step over the lying unconscious. He didn’t notice one soldier creep up behind him, Kaladin’s own side knife in hand, blade unsheathed and glistening.

Kaladin took a step back, and his left leg exploded with pain. He screamed and dropped to one knee, looking up to see the sky dissected by a crisscrossing tangle of weapons, descending upon him like the reaching limbs of eager death. The soldier yanked the knife out of Kaladin’s calf, and he screamed again, more from anguish than agony this time. From the corner of his eye, he saw Dalinar Kholin standing there watching, face set, posture determined.

Then the ring broke, the spell broke, and an opening appeared as someone in a Bridge Four uniform—Teft—distracted the men from behind. Kaladin stumbled to his feet, tiredly raised his spear to take two soldiers, and broke through the disorganized layers of men, something only possible because they were acting more like a mob than a formation. He burst out onto the open field, suddenly able to breathe again as shock and adrenaline numbed his leg. He turned immediately. “Teft, stand down!”

“Run, lad!” Teft yelled back. He knocked down two men, but three more took their place. To their credit, they didn’t seem to want to hurt the grizzled sergeant—just get past him to Kaladin. Teft narrowly missed a halberd to the side, and stumbled. A sword slashed his sleeve, and the thick Bridge Four patch only just prevented blood from being drawn. Kaladin knew that he should simply take the opportunity that Teft was fighting to give him, but he’d had enough of turning a blind eye to his problems. He faced Dalinar, who had his back to him as he walked away from the field, trusting Kaladin’s capture to his—Kaladin noticed now—lighteyed soldiers. The dying sun stretched Dalinar’s shadow long, and in comparison he seemed smaller, somehow. “You made an oath too!” Kaladin shouted at that retreating form, the rusty tang of blood on his lips. “You promised you would take care of my men!”

“I make one last oath to you, Brightlord—that Bridge Four had nothing to do with this, that their loyalty lies not with one man!”

Free of duty yet heavy with responsibility, Kaladin cast one last look at Teft. He met Teft’s dark brown eyes, and the other man nodded, dropping his weapon and holding out empty hands.

“Do not follow blindly,” Kaladin whispered. “Do what is right.”

Then he turned and dashed for the stables, the soldiers flowing past Teft after him.

------

Kaladin cursed himself for not memorizing the layout of the stables as he had the palace. He squinted in the dim dusk light, leaning heavily on a stone pillar to take weight off his wounded leg. 

None of the horses in this section were saddled. By this point, Kaladin was relatively confident in his ability to remain on a moving horse, but that was about the extent of his confidence. There was a muted thump and a loud snort behind one of the doors, and Kaladin thought he saw the glint of a saddle strap. He hobbled towards it, but a flash of movement distracted him. Memory of being stabbed from behind still stark, Kaladin whipped around, spear shaft already moving to smack his assailant in the head.

The stable boy crumpled like a sack of grain. Kaladin caught him before he hit the ground, the head lolling to reveal a face frozen in an expression of terror. Kaladin did not notice the youth’s round cheeks, did not note his slight build, did not stare at the mop of unruly black hair.

A trickle of blood traced the boy’s cheek, slipping down to stain Kaladin’s hands red. Against his better judgement, Kaladin checked the wound. The blow, meant for a helmeted soldier, had collapsed the youth’s skull. Kaladin gently rested the body on the floor of the stable, remembering another small corpse. In the darkness of the stables, Miasal’s father wept, and Kaladin wept with him. 

The sound of footsteps. The light of spheres.

Keep running. Kaladin hauled himself to his feet. The door at the end of the passageway was rattling again, and as Kaladin reached it, he got a good look inside.

It was Dreamstorm.

“You want to be free?” Kaladin asked. “Come with me.”

He threw the latch.

Dreamstorm was happy to do everything else for him. 

It was a miracle that Kaladin didn’t fall out of the saddle as Dreamstorm burst from the stable. She leapt the prone body, kicked down a few doors, and sped into the waning daylight, knocking over any unfortunates that got in her way.

Into the bloody red sunset they charged, man and horse running as one.

Some would have called it glorious.

Chapter 6: Arms Fail (Shallan, Adolin)

Notes:

Posted 2025/2/1

Sixty-four days.

“Brightlord Dalinar, please reconsider,” Shallan protested.

Dalinar held up a hand. “Stabilizing the political situation on the Shattered Plains demands all my attention, and I cannot spare the resources for your scholarship. However, as your attachment to my house is no longer present, you are free to petition the other highprinces for an expedition into the Plains.” 

His eyes grew distant, voice softening a little. “I’m sorry, Brightness Shallan. But circumstances have proven that some things a man must do himself.”

------

“I thought horses didn’t start galloping by themselves!” Moash yelped.

Sureblood soared over a fallen tree trunk, and Moash gripped Adolin’s uniform tighter. Adolin swore he could hear the seams ripping. “Well, we didn’t have time to go to the stables to get you another horse,” Adolin said, teeth clenched against the strain of holding the reins with one hand. He turned to look at the road behind them. Unfortunately, this also gave him a prime view of his own left arm, flopping grey and lifeless against his side.

“I’m still unsure if we’ve lost them,” he said.

------

“So we could stay out in the Hills until this blows over,” Adolin said, “Or we could head to Kholinar.” He, Sureblood, and Moash were somewhere near the Alethi border, the terrain both rugged and lush with plants, which was perhaps the only reason they were yet undetected by the keen-eyed Kholin scouts.

Moash looked up from where he was trying to crack open a wild lavis polyp with a rock. “Kholinar?”

“I’m familiar with the city. Besides, Kholinar is one of the rare places where people might put loyalty to me before loyalty to my house. Perks of growing up in the capital, you see.”

Moash snorted. 

Adolin raised an eyebrow. “So you think we should stay here?”

“Heralds above, no,” Moash said. He slid a finger into a crack in the shell, and began working it open. “This storm isn’t going to blow over anytime soon. I agree that we should go to Kholinar. We just seem to view it very differently.”

“You would fit right in with the rioters, I suppose.”

Moash cursed, then discarded a piece of rockbud shell. “What riots?”

“The few spanreed reports we have indicate the darkeyes are rioting against the queen,” Adolin said, stoking the fire. “The wife of the man you murdered.”

“It wasn’t murder,” Moash growled. “It was self-defense.” He tossed the polyp to Adolin. “You eating or not?”

Adolin caught the roasted polyp and settled down before the fire. He tried to secure his food with his left hand, but of course, it didn’t work. “For someone who owes his life to another, you seem oddly ungrateful.”

“You get used to it after owing your life twenty times over to the same man,” Moash grumbled. “I…I should have listened to him.”

“Who, Kaladin? What did he say?”

Moash swallowed a mouthful of lavis with difficulty. “Not to kill the king.”

“Back there, you made it sound like he also wants the king dead.”

“He should,” Moash said. “He’s just too good to realize it.”

“You’re wrong, Moash. Elhokar was a good man. He wasn’t a perfect king but he was trying.”

“Trying isn’t good enough,” Moash spat. “Darkeyed lives pay for your mistakes.”

Adolin let out an exasperated sigh. “The Almighty himself placed Elhokar on the throne. You think you could do better? If we killed everyone who made a mistake from time to time, there wouldn’t be anyone left on Roshar!” 

“Is that why you stopped your father? Because I made a mistake?”

Adolin hesitated. The truth was, he wasn’t exactly sure of the answer. Guilt for implicating Moash, yes, but also a sudden but deep-seated feeling of wrongness as he watched the Blackthorn strike in retribution. And a faint whispering in his ear, a female voice. His mother?

He still wished it hadn’t cost him his arm. And he certainly wished it hadn’t cost them Elhokar’s life. Unlike the unresponsive grey weight of his arm, that wound was still raw and dripping. Yet somehow, somehow, he still found the thought of killing Moash nauseating. Get over yourself, he thought in disgust. You’ve killed more innocent people on the battlefield than that one.

A huff of disapproval at the back of his mind. Adolin ignored it.

He got up, and started pacing the clearing. Moash watched him from the corner of one eye. He doesn’t trust me, Adolin realized. Hates me, even. The feelings were largely mutual. Per his request, Moash had unbonded his Blade, but the man had about him the look of a cornered whitespine, and Adolin wouldn’t put murdering a highprince’s heir beneath the bridgeman. That is, if Dalinar hadn’t disowned Adolin already. 

Poor Renarin.

------

Renarin rounded the side of the barrack, carrying a stack of washed plates from Bridge Four’s dinner. A tall form stepped out from the shadows. Renarin tensed, but then the person moved into the light, and Renarin realized that he recognized the stranger.

“Renarin?” The visitor said.

Renarin nearly dropped the plates. 

“Shen? You’re back!”

------

One Week into Slavery

“Stop!” Kaladin shouted. He pushed through the clammy press of bodies huddled in mute horror and emerged into the clearing, a sharp wind prickling his cheek as the overseer’s whip whistled past just shy of his face. “Brightlord, please!” 

His words slipped away unheeded, like water draining into a crack. Inexorably the whip fell, and Kaladin cursed gravity itself for aiding its downward arc. Tied to a ladder on the ground, the slave groaned and writhed, his back a bloody tapestry of another man’s hatred. No medical training was necessary to know that if this continued, the slave–Bakks–wouldn’t survive the night. Every lash made the man cower lower, curl smaller, turned Kaladin’s stomach in revulsion and twisted his heart in grief. 

The whip again darted up into the sky, like a skyeel seeking the sun.

Kaladin stepped into its path. “Enough,” he said.

Lithe and powerful, the whip sank into the upper portion of Kaladin’s left arm. For a moment it coiled around his brachium almost lovingly, then reared back, trailing a thin strip of flesh. Kaladin flinched, but held his ground.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the lighteyes snarled. “Thieving cremlings! I’ll teach you a lesson, the lot of you!”

They were both whipped. Bakks passed out and was dragged away, but Kaladin remained cursedly lucid. When he lost the strength to scream from the whip, they exchanged it for a cane. And when he could no longer scream from that, a poker.

Bakks was two days dead by the time Kaladin regained consciousness.

All the man had wanted was an extra piece of bread. 

------

One Week Ago

“Stop!” Adolin shouted. He pushed past General Khal and Brightness Teshav, and stepped into the tempest of flashing metal, a sharp wind prickling his cheek as Dalinar’s Shardblade whistled past just shy of his face. “Father, please!” 

His words slipped away unheeded, like water draining into a crack. Inexorably the weapon fell, and Adolin almost reproved it for its unthinking obedience. Backed against an ornate gold panel, the bridgeman blocked and parried, his Blade a silvery mirror of another man’s rage. No sword training was necessary to know that if this continued, the bridgeman–Moash–wouldn’t survive the minute. Every attack made the man retreat further, deflect slower, frayed Adolin’s thoughts in confusion and turned his stomach in revulsion. 

The Blade again swung up towards the sky, like a banner seeking the light.

There must be a better way.

Adolin stepped into its path. “Peace,” he said.

Majestic and beautiful, Dalinar’s Blade sank into the upper portion of Adolin’s left arm. For a moment it hung there, a barrier between life and death, then reared back, trailing a thin strip of Kholin blue cloth. Adolin flinched, but held his ground. His father stumbled back.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Dalinar said. “I…” His voice tapered off, and Adolin’s father suddenly looked very tired, hollow clefts of loss lining his face as rage drained from the cracks.

They were both in trouble. Dalinar remained frighteningly still as Adolin grabbed Moash and dragged him out the door. When the guards called out in alarm, they veered down a service passage. And when the surprised shouts faded into the crisp night air, Adolin frantically whistled for Sureblood.

The warcamp was two hours behind them by the time Adolin regained his common sense and the accompanying horror of realization.

All he had wanted was to silence the whine in his head.

Notes:

Sometimes I think maybe I should say something in the end notes but it would inevitably deteriorate into self-indulgent rambling and profuse apologizing
As in the last passage I have already engaged in self-indulgent rambling, allow me to profusely apologize for that rambling :)

Chapter 7: Skies Judge (Kaladin, Renarin)

Notes:

Posted 2025/2/1

Sixty-three days.

Kaladin lay on the ground, vision spinning.

A shadow loomed over him, blocking out the light. Dreamstorm lowered her head and nudged Kaladin’s arm.

“You monster,” he groaned. “You threw me for not letting you gallop long after we’d lost our tail, and now you’re content with standing around eating rockbuds?”

Dreamstorm knickered. Then she violently spat on the rock crevice nearest Kaladin’s head, and snapped down with too large teeth to capture an emerging rockbud. The wave of horse breath, accompanied with an intimate face-to-face with Dreamstorm’s tongue, finally spurred Kaladin to his feet.

Immediately he slipped, and crashed back to the ground. A cold wind blew in from the Origin, the horizon bleeding from light to dark too quickly to be the onset of dusk. Highstorm. With a grunt, Kaladin got up on his good leg, and started hobbling towards the leeward side of a rock formation. Dreamstorm snorted, but followed. As he guided Dreamstorm into a nook, Kaladin looked up. Thousands of windspren danced before the stormwall, glowing strands weaving indecipherable meaning into the grey fabric of the clouds. Dreamstorm’s reins slipped unnoticed from his fingers.

Syl…

Dreamstorm huffed a humid breath into his neck, and Kaladin started, still standing in the open, as if welcoming that storm to take him when it had failed so long ago. He wedged himself in next to the warm animal, wishing he had water to clean his wound.

What else he wished for, he dared not admit even to himself.

------

Adolin stared at his reflection dejectedly. Droplets of rain distorted the puddle’s surface, but did nothing to dilute the horror he felt.

“So the dye turned your hair the color of crem,” Moash said. “It’s not the end of the world. Actually, it’s a fair disguise.”

“But the sheen is gone!” Adolin cried. “Not even the finest Purelake mineral soaps will restore it now!”

Bet you miss your face mask.

Adolin jumped. “Did you hear that?”

“No.”

Adolin stepped back from the puddle, disoriented.

------

Moash stared at Adolin’s retreating form.

Maybe the heir was crazy. That would go a long way to explain why Moash was still alive.

------

Jasnah stood before the two lighteyed guards in front of the Pinnacle. They looked at her ragged dress, looked at her purple eyes, and looked thoroughly uncomfortable.

“Brightlady, the King only accepts invited guests into the palace–” The guard’s voice tapered off as Jasnah raised her hand, a long, thin Shardblade snapping into place.

She strode in.

------

Renarin knelt on the cold stone floor. The knife, held in one trembling hand, bit into the stone wall like a desperate animal seeking the warmth of blood.  

Sixty-three days, he told the stone. The Everstorm comes.

“Sixty-three days,” Rlain whispered.

Renarin whipped his head around. He hadn’t noticed the guard enter. He stammered, an excuse faltering on his tongue. “Rlain, I–”

“Rhythms ancient and new…” Rlain said in a low voice, almost reverent. “Renarin…you see it too? My people…everyone I loved…they are doing something terrible, are going to do something terrible.” His rhythm quickened. “Renarin, Kaladin is gone and Dalinar won’t listen. We have to do something!”

Renarin’s response lodged in his throat. He knew any attempts to change the future to be futile, but no words seemed adequate to convey that meaning to the man before him.

Rlain knelt down next to Renarin, head bowed. “The listeners, the Parshendi…destroyed, monsters left in their place. I have nothing left…”

Adolin would have put an arm around the parshman–the Parshendi, Renarin corrected himself as he looked at Rlain’s carapace–but Renarin wasn’t his brother. “Yes you do,” Renarin said instead, feeling a little silly. “You’re Bridge Four.”

Rlain smiled.

------

Kaladin cut the stitches on the Bridge Four patch with the head of his spear. 

He looked at it for a moment, then put it in his pocket. Kaladin then took off his uniform coat, folding and sliding it under the saddle. It was more waterproof than his undershirt, but people would be wary of a Kholin soldier. Especially one offering medical care in exchange for spheres, and hopefully, new bandages for his leg wound.

As he set out on Dreamstorm for the nearest town, the Stormfather’s words echoed in his mind.

YOU HAVE KILLED HER.

Notes:

Renarin is wrong-the countdown doesn’t end at the onset of the Everstorm. I have something else in mind!

Chapter 8: Wills Clash (Jasnah, Leshwi)

Notes:

Posted 2025/2/1

Sixty-one days.

“Urithiru is out there, Uncle!” Jasnah snapped, patience waning. Her tardiness, while not directly responsible for her brother’s death and her cousin’s disappearance, was not something she wanted to make a habit of.

Dalinar held up a hand. “Stabilizing the political situation on the Shattered Plains demands all my attention, and I cannot spare the resources for your scholarship. Without their powers, the relics of the Knights Radiant will not further this goal any more than a dusty tome written by an old king. However, I will appreciate another Shardbearer.”

Something had changed about Dalinar. Logic no longer appealed to him as it once had, and Jasnah made a mental note to approach a random sample of his staff and officers on the topic. In the meantime, she drew herself to her full height, striding forward to stand before Dalinar where he was seated on Elhokar’s–Dalinar’s throne.

Jasnah turned that throne into blood. 

As Dalinar crashed into the growing puddle, Jasnah leaned down. In one smooth motion, she drove her Shardblade into the floor and laid a hand on the hilt.

“The Knights Radiant,” Jasnah said softly, “have returned. Gather your forces, Uncle. We march on Narak.”

------

“Wait your turn, Pursuer,” Leshwi said, humming to the Rhythm of Destruction.

Lezian just growled at her in response. Leshwi could admit that he was sane, but only because for the Fused, those standards had slackened considerably. They had waited long for this Return, the Herald holding on longer than any of them could have anticipated. Now the lock was open, the Fused awakened, only to be told that they had to await the Everstorm for inhabitable Singer bodies.

Made Lezian downright unpleasant to have in line behind her.

Leshwi looked up at the dark sky of Braize, looking forward to the day when wind could again caress her face.

Notes:

I’m trying to control the number of characters to keep this fic a manageable size, but Leshwi demanded a pov😁

Chapter 9: Dreams Feel (Odium)

Notes:

Posted 2025/2/1
My update schedule is decided by me looking at what I have written during the week every weekend, doing a few rounds of editing, and hitting that add chapter button like a maniac—so I’ve included chapter publication dates, hope they help!

Fifty-three days.

The essence of the Spiritual Realm swirled around Odium, forming into permutation after permutation, possibility after possibility. He reached out towards every one, searching.

There.

Not one, but three. They would fight for the mantle of champion.

The Shard of Odium trembled in delight at the passion it would bring.

------

In a tent on a plateau near Narak, Dalinar dreamed of his wife.

------

In a rock hollow by the road to Hearthstone, Kaladin dreamed of his brother.

------

In a cheap inn outside the walls of Kholinar, Adolin dreamed of his mother.

Notes:

…Just when the chapters don’t seem to be able to get any shorter, they do! Under most circumstances I make each day a chapter, which means that while this chapter is smaller than Amaram’s conscience, I’m still hacking my way through the bloated monster that is the next

Just realized that I forgot to add Amaram to the AU. Ah well, everybody can pretend that he tripped over a rock and tumbled into a chasm in the backdrop

Notes:

Thanks for reading! Feedback is always welcome and deeply appreciated, and feel free to let me know if there is anything you’d like to see :)