He dropped in a rush, one hand still holding the sliced rope, stomach lurching with the jarring distress of falling. The bridge shot away as if rising, and Kaladin's panicked mind immediately sent his eyes downward. This wasn't beautiful. This was terrifying. It was horrible. He was going to die! He It's all right.

His emotions calmed in a heartbeat. Somehow, he knew what to do. He twisted in the air, dropping the rope and hitting the ground with both feet down. He came to a crouch, resting one hand on the stone, a jolt of coldness shooting through him. His remaining Stormlight came out in a single burst, flung from his body in a luminescent smoke ring that crashed against the ground before spreading out, vanishing.

He stood up straight. Lopen gaped. Kaladin felt an ache in his legs from hitting, but it was like that of having leaped four or five feet.

"Like ten crashes of thunder on the mounts, gancho!" Lopen exclaimed. "That was incredible!"

"Thank you," Kaladin said. He raised a hand to his head, glancing at the rocks scattered about the base of the wall, then looking up at the armor tied securely up above.

"I told you," Syl said, landing on his shoulder. She sounded triumphant.

"Lopen," Kaladin said. "You think you can get that bundle of armor during the next bridge run?"

"Sure," Lopen said. "Nobody will see. They ignore us Herdies, they ignore bridgemen, and they especially ignore cripples. To them, I'm so invisible I should be walking through walls."

Kaladin nodded. "Get it. Hide it. Give it to me right before the final plateau assault."

"They aren't going to like you going into a bridge run armored, gancho," Lopen said. "I don't think this will be any different from what you tried before."

"We'll see," Kaladin said. "Just do it." "The death is my life, the strength becomes my weakness, the journey has ended." -Dated Betabanes, 1173, 95 seconds pre-death. Subject: a scholar of some minor renown. Sample collected secondhand. Considered questionable. "That is why, Father," Adolin said, "you absolutely cannot abdicate to me, no matter what we discover with the visions."

"Is that so?" Dalinar asked, smiling to himself.

"Yes."

"Very well, you've convinced me."

Adolin stopped dead in the hallway. The two of them were on their way to Dalinar's chambers. Dalinar turned and looked back at the younger man. "Really?" Adolin asked. "I mean, I actually won an argument with you?"

"Yes," Dalinar said. "Your points are valid." He didn't add that he'd come to the decision on his own. "No matter what, I will stay. I can't leave this fight now."

Adolin smiled broadly.

"But," Dalinar said, raising a finger. "I have a requirement. I will draft an order-notarized by the highest of my scribes and witnessed by Elhokar- that gives you the right to depose me, should I grow too mentally unstable. We won't let the other camps know of it, but I will not risk letting myself grow so crazy that it's impossible to remove me."

"All right," Adolin said, walking up to Dalinar. They were alone in the hallway. "I can accept that. Assuming you don't tell Sadeas about it. I still don't trust him."

"I'm not asking you to trust him," Dalinar said pushing the door open to his chambers. "You just need to believe that he is capable of changing. Sadeas was once a friend, and I think he can be again."

The cool stones of the Soulcast chamber seemed to hold the chill of the spring weather. It continued to refuse to slip into summer, but at least it hadn't slid into winter either. Elthebar promised that it would not do so-but, then, the stormwarden's promises were always filled with caveats. The Almighty's will was mysterious, and the signs couldn't always be trusted.

He accepted stormwardens now, though when they'd first grown popular, he'd rejected their aid. No man should try to know the future, nor lay claim to it, for it belonged only to the Almighty himself. And Dalinar wondered how stormwardens could do their research without reading. They claimed they didn't, but he'd seen their books filled with glyphs. Glyphs. They weren't meant to be used in books; they were pictures. A man who had never seen one before could still understand what one meant, based on its shape. That made interpreting glyphs different from reading.

Stormwardens did a lot of things that made people uncomfortable. Unfortunately, they were just so useful. Knowing when a highstorm might strike, well, that was just too tempting an advantage. Even though stormwardens were frequently wrong, they were more often right.

Renarin knelt beside the hearth, inspecting the fabrial that had been installed there to warm the room. Navani had already arrived. She sat at Dalinar's elevated writing desk, scribbling a letter; she waved a distracted greeting with her reed as Dalinar entered. She wore the fabrial he had seen her displaying at the feast a few weeks back; the multilegged contraption was attached to her shoulder, gripping the cloth of her violet dress.

"I don't know, Father," Adolin said, closing the door. Apparently he was still thinking about Sadeas. "I don't care if he's listening to The Way of Kings. He's just doing it to make you look less closely at the plateau assaults so that his clerks can arrange his cut of the gemhearts more favorably. He's manipulating you."

Dalinar shrugged. "Gemhearts are secondary, son. If I can reforge an alliance with him, then it's worth nearly any cost. In a way, I'm the one manipulating him."

Adolin sighed. "Very well. But I'm still going to keep a hand on my money pouch when he's near."

"Just try not to insult him," Dalinar said. "Oh, and something else. I would like you to take extra care with the King's Guard. If there are soldiers we know for certain are loyal to me, put those in charge of guarding Elhokar's rooms. His words about a conspiracy have me worried."

"Surely you don't give them credence," Adolin said.

"Something odd did happen with his armor. This whole mess stinks like cremslime. Perhaps it will turn out to be nothing. For now, humor me."

"I have to note," Navani said, "that I didn't much care for Sadeas back when you, he, and Gavilar were friends." She finished her letter with a flourish.

"He's not behind the attacks on the king," Dalinar said.

"How can you be certain?" Navani asked.

"Because it's not his way," Dalinar said. "Sadeas never wanted the title of king. Being highprince gives him plenty of power, but leaves him with someone to take the blame for large-scale mistakes." Dalinar shook his head. "He never tried to seize the throne from Gavilar, and he's even better positioned with Elhokar."

"Because my son's a weakling," Navani said. It wasn't an accusation.

"He's not weak," Dalinar said, "He's inexperienced. But yes, that does make the situation ideal for Sadeas. He's telling the truth-he asked to be Highprince of Information because he wants very badly to find out who is trying to kill Elhokar."

"Mashala," Renarin said, using the formal term for aunt. "That fabrial on your shoulder, what does it do?"

Navani looked down at the device with a sly smile. Dalinar could see she'd been hoping one of them would ask. Dalinar sat down; the highstorm would be coming soon.

"Oh, this? It's a type of painrial. Here, let me show you." She reached up with her safehand, pushing a clip that released the clawlike legs. She held it up. "Do you have any aches, dear? A stubbed toe, perhaps, or a scrape?"

Renarin shook his head.

"I pulled a muscle in my hand during dueling practice earlier," Adolin said. "It's not bad, but it does ache."

"Come over here," Navani said. Dalinar smiled fondly-Navani was always at her most genuine when playing with new fabrials. It was one of the few times when one got to see her without any pretense. This wasn't Navani the king's mother or Navani the political schemer. This was Navani the excited engineer.