Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, Book 2)

Teft kept his neat for the same reason. It was light brown where it hadn’t gone grey, and he wore it short and square, almost like an ardent’s.

“I will protect even those I hate,” Kaladin whispered through bloody lips. “So long as it is right.”

What she wouldn’t have given to be able to go among them unnoticed, to adopt their monochrome skin for a year and walk their highways, see their grand cities. Instead, she and the others had ordered the murder of the Alethi king in a desperate gambit to stop the listener gods from returning. Well, that had worked—the Alethi king hadn’t been able to

“Spren are . . . power . . . shattered power. Power given thought by the perceptions of men. Honor, Cultivation, and . . . and another. Fragments broken off.”

“Oh, come on,” Syl said, tossing her hair. “That was worth at least a chuckle.” Kaladin kept walking. “A snort is not a chuckle,” Syl said. “I know this because I am intelligent and articulate. You should compliment me now.”

Expectation wasn’t just about what people expected of you. It was about what you expected of yourself.

“Not easy,” Dalinar said, “but there is no point in demanding answers.” “Particularly if the Almighty is dead. . . .” Perhaps he should not have shared that fact with her. Speaking of just that one idea could brand him a heretic, drive his own ardents from him, give Sadeas a weapon against the Throne. If the Almighty was dead, what

Syl alighted on Kaladin’s shoulder, taking the form of a young woman with a flowing, filmy dress, all blue-white. She held her hands clasped together as she looked up at the king’s complex, where Dalinar Kholin had gone to plan.

Some of his colleagues bought their lasts—the wooden forms around which a cobbler built his shoes—from carpenters, but Ym had been taught to make his own.