Words of Radiance

Shallan Davar and Jasnah sail to the Shattered Plains. On deck, Shallan, who has an incredible talent for drawing from memory, sketches Shadesmar, startled when a rippling pattern runs across the page. As they sail, a santhid, an elusive and mysterious creature, floats by the ship, piquing Shallan’s curiosity. Jasnah joins her and explains that Shadesmar is the cognitive realm in which spren live. Shallan suggests that spren are ideas come to life, just as Jasnah theorizes. There is tension between the two, Shallan still feeling guilty about having stolen Jasnah’s soulcaster—a device that transforms objects into different materials—in an attempt to pay her family’s debts. Despite this, they agree to work together to discover how parshmen, a people enslaved by the Alethi, will bring calamity to the world. Jasnah theorizes that the parshmen are the Voidbringers—who brought devastation to humanity in eras past. Jasnah tells Shallan that her mother, Navani, plans to betroth Shallan to Jasnah’s cousin, Adolin, to help protect Shallan’s family.

Kaladin observes his new barracks and the 1,000 men he now leads after Dalinar Kholin traded his priceless Shardblade to Highprince Sadeas to free them. Dalinar did this when Kaladin and his crew stayed behind on a plateau assault to save his men after Sadeas betrayed them, trapping them in an imbalanced fight with the Parshendi. Kaladin gathers his most trusted men and assigns them roles, some training other bridgemen, while others will join Kaladin in becoming bodyguards to Dalinar’s family, including Dalinar’s nephew Elhokar, the king. Teft—who comes from a family that worshipped the Knights Radiant, an ancient order of honorable Surgebinders who eventually betrayed humankind—encourages Kaladin to reveal to Dalinar that he is a Surgebinder. Surgebinders are bonded with spren and can use Stormlight to manipulate the world around them. Kaladin hesitates: As a darkeyes—a member of the Alethi lower classes—he has learned to distrust the upper-class lighteyes.

Shallan continues to see the pattern from her drawing, and when she manages to sketch it, it springs to life off the page. She panics and finds her mentor speaking through a small inky figure. Jasnah explains that spren bond with humans. There are 10 kinds of spren, related to the 10 orders of the Knights Radiant, and Shallan bonded with a liespren, or Cryptic. Jasnah theorizes that spren arise from a natural power that is shaped by human thought.

Dalinar finds himself in the midst of a vision during a highstorm. He is on the Purelake with soldiers and a Knight Radiant who warns her men to watch for a spren. Dalinar sees a face in the water with red eyes. It flees as a giant rock creature erupts from the water. As they fight it, Dalinar hears the voice of the Almighty, the Alethi god, warning him to prepare for the coming storm of Vex Odium. When he wakes, he tells Navani that he believes he is called to recreate the Knights Radiant. He tells her that he will make his proclamation to the highprinces public soon in an effort to keep Alethkar from ripping apart. Later that night, Dalinar wakes to find a cryptic message written on his wall: “Sixty-two days […] Death follows” (80). He tells Navani to release the proclamation, sure that this is a countdown to the Everstorm, the fabled evil highstorm.

Kaladin’s honorspren, Syl, worries that he feels too much responsibility for his men. Meanwhile, in his warcamp, Sadeas gazes at his new Shardblade but feels that Dalinar manipulated him. He is angry with Dalinar’s proclamation that highprinces will now be assigned to joint plateau assaults for gemhearts. Kaladin stands guard during a meeting between Dalinar, his nephew, King Elhokar, and their strategists. The highprinces are angry and likely to rebel after the proclamation, and Dalinar shares that he hopes to disarm them, with his son Adolin winning their Shardblades and Shardplates in duels. He also announces his plans to reassemble the Knights Radiant.

Shallan observes her liespren, whom she names Pattern, as he begins to develop speech. She asks when he first found her, and when he tells her he found her among plants, she is transported back to her father’s garden. She pushes the thought from her mind as she notices the room around her turning green. When Shallan finds Jasnah and tells her about the green, Jasnah explains that Shallan can control light, using the power of Illumination. Jasnah gives Shallan a copy of Words of Radiance, a book that details the abilities of the Knights Radiant. Jasnah worries that a rise in Surgebinders is a sign of a Desolation coming—meaning that the Voidbringers will wage war against humanity. They must convince the Alethi of the dangers of parshmen and find the lost city of the Knights Radiant, Urithiru, for answers on how to stop the coming threats. Shallan retires but wakes to screams and smoke.

Shallan runs from her cabin to find men with torches stabbing Jasnah. In her panic, she breathes in Stormlight from the spheres around her and projects a figure of light running down the hall. She then transports herself to Shadesmar with Pattern and finds the bead that represents the ship. She begs it to transform into water to save everyone from the murderers. The ship becomes water, and Shallan sinks.

Dalinar joins Highprince Aladar for a plateau assault, and though he does not fight, his advice helps Aladar push back the Parshendi and win the gemstone. Dalinar tries to convince Aladar that working together will help the kingdom, but Aladar resists: While he might trust Dalinar, he cannot trust the other Highprinces. As they leave, Dalinar sees a figure standing on the other side of the chasm. It is the Parshendi Shardbearer he fought after Sadeas’s betrayal. Back at camp, Dalinar receives a letter that an old friend is joining them.

Kaladin and his men descend into the chasm to test Kaladin’s abilities. Kaladin asks Syl if there are others like him, and she tells him there are, as spren are returning to the world to prepare for impending danger. She, however, is the only honorspren that comes, having disobeyed the Stormfather, the power behind the highstorms. She encourages Kaladin to tell Dalinar that he can be a Radiant, and she dismisses his concerns that lighteyes will somehow take her if they know about her.

Six years ago, Shallan cries as her father sings a lullaby, carrying her out of his room. He tells her to pretend that nothing happened, promising that he will protect her. She sees the corpses on the ground. Her mother is one of them, her eyes burned out. As they pass her father’s strongbox, behind a painting on the wall, Shallan sees that it glows, and she knows there is a monster inside it.

Shallan wakes up on the shore and looks out to see that the Santhid—rare, benevolent sea creatures—have rescued her. She and Pattern search for survivors but find only Jasnah’s trunk. She realizes that she has lost all her belongings, including her copy of Words of Radiance. Shallan is relieved to have her mentor’s spheres and life’s work, but she cannot start a fire. Desperate, she begins walking until she finds a fire and passes out at its edge. She wakes to meet an enslaver, Tvlakv, and she decides to act important and powerful. He falls for her deception and agrees to take her to the Shattered Plains.

Kaladin tests his abilities with his men. He attaches rocks to walls by infusing them with Stormlight—a practice known as lashing. He even lashes Lopen—a member of the Bridge Four crew—to the wall. Afterward, they spar with spears, and Kaladin uses his Stormlight to lash their weapons to different objects, throwing them off. Back at camp, soldiers tell Kaladin that Brightlord Amaram is joining Dalinar, and when Kaladin sees Amaram shaking Dalinar’s hand, his hatred for the man who killed his brother and friends boils up. Kaladin once joined Brightlord Amaram’s army to protect his younger brother, who was conscripted into it. After his brother died, sacrificed in battle, Kaladin fought for his friends. In one battle, Kaladin killed a Shardbearer to protect Amaram. By law, the Shards became Kaladin’s, but he refused them out of distaste for such murderous weapons. Amaram then claimed them, killing all witnesses to protect his reputation and enslaving Kaladin.

Eshonai, the final Shardbearer of the Parshendi, returns to their capital, Narak, on the central plateau of the Shattered Plains. She hoped to find Dalinar again at the battle, wanting to speak with him to sue for peace. As she walks through her city, built among the ruins of an ancient one, she sees Parshendi in the many forms they can take: warform, nimbleform, mateform, workform, and dullform. Each form is physically and mentally different. Eshonai is currently in warform, featuring thick body armor. Missing is slaveform, which makes Parshendi docile and obedient, turning them into the parshmen. She visits her sister Venli, a scholar, who reveals that she has discovered a new form: stormform. She wants to bring it to the Five for approval, but Eshonai pushes back, wanting peace rather than destruction. The Parshendi retreated from the world and their gods to escape such violence and even assassinated Gavilar when he suggested returning their gods to the world. Eshonai worries stormform will do just that.

Ym, a cobbler, works as his spren watches him use Stormlight to heal an unhoused boy’s wound and fit him with a new set of shoes. After the boy leaves, a man with a scar across his face walks out of Ym’s back room and accuses him of murder. Ym protests, saying he did not mean to kill, that this past murder was an accident. Ym insists that he is changed, but the man claims that justice is persistent and kills Ym with a Shardblade.

Rysn sails with her merchant mentor, Vstim, to the floating islands of Reshi, which are really gigantic crustaceans with villages on their backs. With Vstim sick, Reshi must take charge of the trade, and he warns his apprentice that the Reshi will be harsh. Rysn meets with the king and the prince but fails to earn their respect and their business. In a final attempt to convince them of her boldness, Rysn takes a rope and drops down to the eye of the crustacean, their god, asking its permission for trade. It snaps the rope, and Rysn falls, waking paralyzed. Vstim reveals that they came to trade for a larkin, but that the island decides to give Rysn one. She looks at the small creature with wings and eyes of silver.

Eshonai takes the gemheart with the spren inside that will facilitate the transformation to stormform. She is anxious, believing that the form will unlock ancient powers and attract the gods her people once fled. Before this, they had no control over what form they took and were controlled by their gods. She meets with the Five, one council member from each form, to decide whether they will explore this new form. They agree to do so, but only after Eshonai compromises, saying she will test it instead of Venli, not wanting to risk Venli’s scholarship.