But which direction was westward? It would be very, very easy to get lost down here.

“You’re not picking our course at random, are you?” she asked.

“No.”

“You seem to know a lot about these chasms.”

“I do.”

“Because the gloomy atmosphere matches your disposition, I assume.”

He kept his eyes forward, walking without comment.

“Storms,” she said, hurrying to catch up. “That was supposed to be lighthearted. What would it take to make you relax, bridgeboy?”

“I guess I’m just a . . . what was it again? A ‘hateful man’?”

“I haven’t seen any proof to the contrary.”

“That’s because you don’t care to look, lighteyes. Everyone beneath you is just a plaything.”

“What?” she said, taking it like a slap to the face. “Where would you get that idea?”

“It’s obvious.”

“To whom? To you only? When have you seen me treat someone of a lesser station like a plaything? Give me one example.”

“When I was imprisoned,” he said immediately, “for doing what any lighteyes would have been applauded for doing.”

“And that was my fault?” she demanded.

“It’s the fault of your entire class. Each time one of us is defrauded, enslaved, beaten, or broken, the blame rests upon all of you who support it. Even indirectly.”

“Oh please,” she said. “The world isn’t fair? What a huge revelation! Some people in power abuse those they have power over? Amazing! When did this start happening?”

He gave no reply. He’d tied his spheres to the top of his spear with a pouch formed from the white handkerchief he’d found on one of the scribes. Held high, it lit the chasm nicely for them.

“I think,” she said, tucking away her own sphere for convenience, “that you’re just looking for excuses. Yes, you’ve been mistreated. I admit it. But I think you’re the one who cares about eye color, that it’s just easier for you to pretend that every lighteyes is abusing you because of your status. Have you ever asked yourself if there’s a simpler explanation? Could it be that people don’t like you, not because you’re darkeyed, but because you’re just a huge pain in the neck?”

He snorted, then moved on more quickly.

“No,” Shallan said, practically running to keep even with him and his long stride. “You’re not wiggling out of this. You don’t get to imply that I’m abusing my station, then walk off without a response. You did this earlier, with Adolin. Now with me. What is your problem?”

“You want a better example of you playing with people beneath you?” Kaladin asked, dodging her question. “Fine. You stole my boots. You pretended to be someone you weren’t and bullied a darkeyed guard you’d barely met. Is that a good enough example of you playing with someone you saw as beneath you?”

She stopped in her tracks. He was right, there. She wanted to blame Tyn’s influence, but his comment cut the bite out of her argument.

He stopped ahead of her, looking back. Finally, he sighed. “Look,” he said. “I’m not holding a grudge about the boots. From what I’ve seen lately, you’re not as bad as the others. So let’s just leave it at that.”

“Not as bad as the others?” Shallan said, walking forward. “What a delightful compliment. Well, let’s say you’re right. Perhaps I am an insensitive rich woman. That doesn’t change the fact that you can be downright mean and offensive, Kaladin Stormblessed.”

He shrugged.

“That’s it?” she asked. “I apologize, and all I get in return is a shrug?”

“I am what the lighteyes have made me to be.”

“So you’re not culpable at all,” she said flatly. “For the way you act.”

“I’d say not.”

“Stormfather. I can’t say anything to change the way you treat me, can I? You’re just going to continue to be an intolerant, odious man, full of spite. Incapable of being pleasant around others. Your life must be very lonely.”

That seemed to get under his skin, as his face turned red in the spherelight. “I’m starting to revise my opinion,” he said, “of you not being as bad as the others.”

“Don’t lie,” she said. “You’ve never liked me. Right from the start. And not just because of the boots. I see how you watch me.”

“That’s because,” he said, “I know you’re lying through your smile at everyone you meet. The only time you seem honest is when you’re insulting someone!”

“The only honest things I can say to you are insults.”

“Bah!” he said. “I just . . . Bah! Why is it that being around you makes me want to claw my face off, woman?”

“I have special training,” she said, glancing to the side. “And I collect faces.” What was that?

“You can’t just—”

He cut off as the scraping noise, echoing from one of the chasms, grew louder.

Kaladin immediately put his hand over his improvised sphere lantern, plunging them into darkness. In Shallan’s estimation, that did not help. She stumbled toward him in the darkness, grabbing his arm with her freehand. He was annoying, but he was also there.

The scraping continued. A sound like rock on rock. Or . . . carapace on rock.

“I guess,” she whispered nervously, “having a shouting match in an echoing network of chasms was not terribly wise.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s getting closer, isn’t it?” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“So . . . run?”

The scraping seemed just beyond the next turn.

“Yeah,” Kaladin said, pulling his hand off his spheres and charging away from the noise.

Whether this was Tanavast’s design or not, millennia have passed without Rayse taking the life of another of the sixteen. While I mourn for the great suffering Rayse has caused, I do not believe we could hope for a better outcome than this.

Kaladin scrambled down the chasm, leaping branches and refuse, splashing through puddles. The girl kept up better than he’d expected, but—hampered by her dress—she was nowhere near as swift as he was.

He held himself back, matching her pace. Exasperating though she might be, he wasn’t going to abandon Adolin’s betrothed to be eaten by a chasmfiend.

They reached an intersection and chose a path at random. At the next intersection, he only paused long enough to check to see if they were being followed.

They were. Thumping from behind them, claws on stone. Scraping. He grabbed the girl’s satchel—he was already carrying her pack—as they ran down another corridor. Either Shallan was in excellent shape, or the panic got to her, because she didn’t even seem winded when they reached the next intersection.

No time for hesitation. He barreled down a pathway, ears full of the sound of grinding carapace. A sudden four-voiced trump echoed through the chasm, as loud as a thousand horns being blown. Shallan screamed, though Kaladin barely heard her over the horrible sound.

The chasm plants withdrew in large waves. In moments, the entire place went from fecund to barren, like the world preparing for a highstorm. They hit another intersection, and Shallan hesitated, looking back toward the sounds. She held her hands out, as if preparing to embrace the thing. Storming woman! He grabbed her and pulled her after him. They ran down two chasms without stopping.

It was still chasing, though he could only hear it. He had no idea how close it was, but it had their scent. Or their sound? He had no idea how they hunted.

Need a plan! Can’t just—

At the next intersection, Shallan turned the opposite way from the one he had picked. Kaladin cursed, pounding to a stop and running after her.

“This is no time,” he said, puffing, “to argue about—”

“Shut it,” she said. “Follow.”

She led them to an intersection, then another. Kaladin was feeling winded, his lungs protesting. Shallan stopped, then pointed and ran down a chasm. He followed, looking over his shoulder.

He could see only blackness. Moonlight was too distant, too choked, to illuminate these depths. They wouldn’t know if the beast was upon them until it entered the light of his spheres. But Stormfather, it sounded close.

Kaladin turned his attention back to his running. He nearly tripped over something on the ground. A corpse? He leaped it, catching up to Shallan. The hem of her dress was snarled and ripped from the running, her hair a mess, her face flushed. She led them down another corridor, then slowed to a stop, hand to the wall of the chasm, puffing.

Kaladin closed his eyes, breathing in and out. Can’t rest long. It will be coming. He felt as if he were going to collapse.

“Cover that light,” Shallan hissed.

He frowned at her, but did so. “We can’t rest long,” he hissed back.

“Quiet.”

The darkness was complete save for the thin light escaping between his fingers. The scraping seemed almost on top of them. Storms! Could he fight one of these monsters? Without Stormlight? Desperate, he tried to suck in the Light he held in his palm.

No Stormlight came, and he hadn’t seen Syl since the fall. The scraping continued. He prepared to run, but . . .

The sounds didn’t seem to be getting closer anymore. Kaladin frowned. The body he’d stumbled over, it had been one of the fallen from the fight earlier. Shallan had led them back to where they’d started.

And . . . to food for the beast.

He waited, tense, listening to his heartbeat thumping in his chest. Scraping echoed in the chasm. Oddly, some light flashed in the chasm behind. What was that?

“Stay here,” Shallan whispered.

Then, incredibly, she started to move toward the sounds. Still holding the spheres awkwardly with one hand, he reached out with the other and snatched her.

She turned back to him, then looked down. Inadvertently, he’d grabbed her by the safehand. He let go immediately.

“I have to see it,” Shallan whispered to him. “We’re so close.”

“Are you insane?”

“Probably.” She continued toward the beast.

Kaladin debated, cursing her in his mind. Finally, he put his spear down and dropped her pack and satchel over its spheres to muffle the light. Then he followed. What else could he do? Explain to Adolin? Yes, princeling. I let your betrothed wander off alone in the darkness to get eaten by a chasmfiend. No, I didn’t go with her. Yes, I’m a coward.

There was light ahead. It showed Shallan—her outline, at least—crouching beside a turn in the chasm, peeking around. Kaladin stepped up to her, crouching down and taking a look.

There it was.

The beast filled the chasm. Long and narrow, it wasn’t bulbous or bulky, like some small cremlings. It was sinuous, sleek, with that arrowlike face and sharp mandibles.