The tent flaps parted and Adolin ducked in, escorting Navani. She hung her stormcoat on the rack beside the flap, and Adolin grabbed a towel and began drying his hair and face.

Adolin was betrothed to a member of the Knights Radiant. She says she’s not one yet, Dalinar reminded himself. That made sense. One could be a trained spearman without being a soldier. One implied skill, the other a position.

“They are bringing the Parshendi man?” Dalinar asked.

“Yes,” Navani said, sitting down in one of the room’s chairs. Adolin didn’t take his seat, but found a pitcher of filtered rainwater and poured himself a cup. He tapped the side of the tin cup as he drank.

They were restless, all of them, following the discovery of red-eyed Parshendi. After no attack had come that night, Dalinar had pushed the three armies into another day of marching.

Slowly, they approached the middle of the Plains, at least as Shallan’s projections indicated. They were already well beyond the regions that scouts had explored. Now, they had to rely on the young woman’s maps.

The flaps opened again, and Teleb marched in with the prisoner. Dalinar had put the highlord and his personal guard in charge of this “Rlain,” as he didn’t like how defensive the bridgemen were about him. He did invite their lieutenants—Skar and the Horneater cook they called Rock—to come to the interrogation, and those two entered after Teleb and his men. General Khal and Renarin were in another tent with Aladar and Roion, going over tactics for when they approached the Parshendi encampment.

Navani sat up, leaning forward, narrowing her eyes at the prisoner. Shallan had wanted to attend, but Dalinar had promised to have everything written down for her. The Stormfather had given her some sense, fortunately, and she hadn’t insisted. Having too many of them near this spy felt dangerous to Dalinar.

He had a vague recollection of the parshman guard who had occasionally joined the men of Bridge Four. Parshmen were practically invisible, but once this one had started carrying a spear, he had become instantly noticeable. Not that there had been anything else distinctive about him—same squat parshman body, marbled skin, dull eyes.

This creature before him was nothing like that. He was a full Parshendi warrior, complete with orange-red skullplate and armored carapace at the chest, thighs, and outer arms. He was as tall as an Alethi, and more muscular.

Though he carried no weapon, the guards still treated him as if he were the most dangerous thing on this plateau—and perhaps he was just that. As he stepped up, he saluted Dalinar, hand to chest. Like the other bridgemen. He bore their tattoo on his forehead, reaching up and blending into his skullplate.

“Sit,” Dalinar ordered, nodding toward a stool at the center of the room.

Rlain obeyed.

“I’m told,” Dalinar said, “that you refuse to tell us anything about the Parshendi plans.”

“I don’t know them,” Rlain said. He had the rhythmic intonations common to the Parshendi, but he spoke Alethi very well. Better than any parshman Dalinar had heard.

“You were a spy,” Dalinar said, hands clasped behind his back, trying to loom over the Parshendi—but staying far enough away that the man could not grab him without Adolin getting in the way first.

“Yes, sir.”

“For how long?”

“About three years,” Rlain said. “In various warcamps.”

Nearby, Teleb—faceplate up—turned and raised an eyebrow at Dalinar.

“You answer me when I ask,” Dalinar said. “But not the others. Why?”

“You’re my commanding officer,” Rlain said.

“You’re Parshendi.”

“I . . .” The man looked down at the ground, shoulders bowing. He raised a hand to his head, feeling at the ridge of skin just where his skullplate ended. “Something is very wrong, sir. Eshonai’s voice . . . on the plateau that day, when she came to meet with Prince Adolin . . .”

“Eshonai,” Dalinar prompted. “The Parshendi Shardbearer?” Nearby, Navani scribbled on a pad of paper, writing down each word spoken.

“Yes. She was my commander. But now . . .” He looked up, and despite the alien skin and the strange way of speaking, Dalinar recognized grief in this man’s face. Terrible grief. “Sir, I have reason to believe that everyone I know . . . everyone I loved . . . has been destroyed, monsters left in their place. The listeners, the Parshendi, may be no more. I have nothing left . . .”

“Yes you do,” Skar said from outside the ring of guards. “You’re Bridge Four.”

Rlain looked at him. “I’m a traitor.”

“Ha!” Rock said. “Is little problem. Can be fixed.”

Dalinar gestured to quiet the bridgemen. He glanced at Navani, who nodded for him to continue.

“Tell me,” Dalinar said, “how you hid among the parshmen.”

“I . . .”

“Soldier,” Dalinar barked. “That was an order.”

Rlain sat up. Amazingly, he seemed to want to obey—as if he needed something to lend him strength. “Sir,” Rlain said, “it’s just something my people can do. We choose a form based on what we need, the job required of us. Dullform, one of those forms, looks a lot like a parshman. Hiding among them is easy.”

“We account our parshmen with precision,” Navani said.

“Yes,” Rlain replied, “and we are noticed—but rarely questioned. Who questions when you find an extra sphere lying on the ground? It’s not something suspicious. It’s merely fortune.”

Dangerous territory, Dalinar thought, noticing the change in Rlain’s voice—the beat to which he was speaking. This man did not like how the parshmen were treated.

“You spoke of the Parshendi,” Dalinar said. “This has to do with the red eyes?”

Rlain nodded.

“What does it mean, soldier?” Dalinar asked.

“It means our gods have returned,” Rlain whispered.

“Who are your gods?”

“They are the souls of those ancient. Those who gave of themselves to destroy.” A different rhythm to his words this time, slow and reverent. He looked up at Dalinar. “They hate you and your kind, sir. This new form they have given my people . . . it is something terrible. It will bring something terrible.”

“Can you lead us to the Parshendi city?” Dalinar asked.

Rlain’s voice changed again. A different rhythm. “My people . . .”

“You said they are gone,” Dalinar said.

“They might be,” Rlain said. “I got close enough to see an army, tens of thousands. But surely they left some in other forms. The elderly? The young? Who watches our children?”

Dalinar stepped up to Rlain, waving back Adolin, who raised an anxious hand. He stooped down, laying an arm on the Parshendi man’s shoulder.

“Soldier,” Dalinar said, “if what you’re telling me is correct, then the most important thing you can do is lead us to your people. I will see that the noncombatants are protected, my word of honor on it. If something terrible is happening to your people, you need to help me stop it.”

“I . . .” Rlain took a deep breath. “Yes, sir,” he said to a different rhythm.

“Meet with Shallan Davar,” Dalinar said. “Describe the route to her, and get us a map. Teleb, you may release the prisoner into the custody of Bridge Four.”

The Oldblood Shardbearer nodded. As the group of them left, letting in a gust of rainy wind, Dalinar sighed and sat down beside Navani.

“You trust his word?”

“I don’t know,” Dalinar said. “But something did shake that man, Navani. Soundly.”

“He’s Parshendi,” she said. “You may be misreading his body language.”

Dalinar leaned forward, clasping his hands before him. “The countdown?” he asked.

“Three days away,” Navani said. “Three days before Lightday.”

So little time. “We hasten our pace,” he said.

Inward. Toward the center.

And destiny.

You must become king. Of Everything.

—From the Diagram, Tenets of Instruction, Back of the Footboard: paragraph 1

Shallan fought against the wind, pulling her stormcoat—stolen from a soldier—close around her as she struggled up the slick incline.

“Brightness?” Gaz asked. He grabbed his cap to keep it from blowing free. “Are you certain you want to do this?”

“Of course I am,” Shallan said. “Whether or not what I’m doing is wise . . . well, that’s another story.”

These winds were unusual for the Weeping, which was supposed to be a period of placid rainfall, a time for contemplating the Almighty, a respite from highstorms.

Maybe things were different out here in the stormlands. She pulled herself up the rocks. The Shattered Plains had grown increasingly rough as the armies traveled inward—now on their eighth day of the expedition—following Shallan’s map, created with the help of Rlain, the former bridgeman.

Shallan crested the rock formation and found the view that the scouts had described. Vathah and Gaz stomped up behind her, muttering about the cold. The heart of the Shattered Plains extended before Shallan. The inner plateaus, never explored by men.

“It’s here,” she said.

Gaz scratched at the socket beneath his eye patch. “Rocks?”

“Yes, guardsman Gaz,” Shallan said. “Rocks. Beautiful, wonderful rocks.”

In the distance, she saw shadows draped in a veil of misty rain. Seen together in a group like this, it was unmistakable. This was a city. A city covered over with centuries’ worth of crem, like children’s blocks dribbled with many coats of melted wax. To the innocent eye, it undoubtedly looked much like the rest of the Shattered Plains. But it was oh so much more.

It was proof. Even this formation Shallan stood upon had probably once been a building. Weathered on the stormward side, dribbled with crem down the leeward side to create the bulbous, uneven slope they had climbed.

“Brightness!”

She ignored the voices from down below, instead waving impatiently for the spyglass. Gaz handed it to her, and she raised it to inspect the plateaus ahead. Unfortunately, the thing had fogged up on one end. She tried to rub it clean, rain washing over her, but the fog was on the inside. Blasted device.

“Brightness?” Gaz asked. “Shouldn’t we, uh, listen to what they’re saying down below?”

“More twisted Parshendi spotted,” Shallan said, raising the spyglass again. Wouldn’t the designer of the thing have built it to be sealed on the inside, to prevent moisture from getting in?

Gaz and Vathah stepped back as several members of Bridge Four reached the top of the incline.

“Brightness,” one of the bridgemen said, “Highprince Dalinar has withdrawn the vanguard and ordered a secure perimeter on the plateau behind us.” He was a tall, handsome man whose arms seemed entirely too long for his body. Shallan looked with dissatisfaction at the inner plateaus.