Oathbringer

Six years later, Dalinar Kholin, Gavilar’s brother, is now the highprince of war for the Alethi: The listeners successfully assassinated Gavilar at the end of the feast celebrating their treaty with the Alethi.

Dalinar is a Radiant—a human with mystical powers provided through a bond with creatures called spren. The spren are shards created when the vessel for the god, Honor, was destroyed. Dalinar is bonded with the spren known as the Stormfather, who rules the highstorms (weather phenomena that affect Roshar regularly and follow a predictable route). The Stormfather is a special spren known as a bondsman spren; he is not a shard of Honor. Dalinar, who is a bondsman and therefore can bond with the Stormfather and the other three bondsman spren, walks through one of the visions sent to him by the god, Honor, before Honor’s death. Dalinar seeks clues for how to save his people from the god Odium, who wants to destroy all humans. Odium is one of the 16 shards created when the god known as the Almighty was broken. After Dalinar’s vision from the Stormfather, a scout informs Dalinar and Navani, a renowned researcher, Dalinar’s romantic partner, and Gavilar’s widow, that they found the body of Torol Sadeas, an Alethi highprince who betrayed Dalinar.

Adolin, Dalinar’s son from his marriage to Evi, examines the murder scene with his family. He is uncomfortable because he killed Sadeas. Dalinar splits up responsibilities for the tower between the highprinces, trying to avoid further outbreaks of violence between his and Sadeas’s men. He also asks Shallan, who is betrothed to Adolin, and his other son from his first marriage, Renarin, both of whom are Radiants, to learn more about the burgeoning powers of the new Knights Radiant.

Dalinar and his brother, Gavilar, prepare for battle against a princedom they aim to conquer. Dalinar becomes more brutal as the Thrill, or battle fury, takes over. Under the influence of the Thrill, he kills the highprince. Dalinar then recruits the archer who was supposed to assassinate him.

The Stormfather presides at Dalinar and Navani’s wedding because The Vorin church forbids marriage between siblings-in-law. Navani was previously married to Gavilar, which, in the eyes of the Vorin, made Navani and Dalinar siblings in truth. Kadash, one of Dalinar’s ardents, or priests, warns Dalinar to be careful how much more he defies the church publicly. His reference to Dalinar’s younger self triggers a return of the first of many memories throughout the novel.

Kaladin journeys to Hearthstone, his hometown in Alethkar. He berates himself for not reaching Hearthstone before the Everstorm (a powerfully destructive weather pattern created by Odium’s followers and described in the novel Words of Radiance) hits the town. Kaladin is surprised to find the town survived. Guards push Kaladin into the mansion of their brightlord (a member of the nobility).

Kaladin reunites with his parents, who believe Kaladin died. A guard argues Kaladin should be restrained, believing he is dangerous because of the brands that mark his previous enslavement, but Kaladin’s father Lirin fights for his son’s freedom.

Kaladin uses Syl’s Shardblade, or sword, form, which reveals his new status as a lighteyes or member of the Alethi class who were chosen by the Heralds to rule, but not his status as a Knight Radiant. Radiants can bond with spren because they can channel spren power and speak the words necessary for each level of their bond. He learns that the Everstorm freed the parshmen (beings who are really singers but who had lost access to their powers) from enslavement and restored their powers and free will. The parshmen fled the town with stolen supplies rather than attacking the humans. Kaladin contacts Dalinar through the spanreed, a machine for long-distance written communication, and they agree he is to pursue the parshmen and discover their purpose. Before leaving, Kaladin reveals that he is a Knight Radiant. This renews hope among the townspeople.

At a meeting of the Kholins’ trusted inner circle, Dalinar and Shallan discover that they can create a large-scale, detailed map of the world by combining Shallan’s lightweaving (illusion) powers with Dalinar’s connection to the Stormfather’s views of the world through the traveling highstorms. Dalinar uses this method to determine which countries to approach in his quest to unite Roshar. A scout announces another murder in Urithiru.

The Kholins and Shallan rush to the murder scene, which mirrors Sadeas’s murder exactly. They believe they have a serial killer on their hands. Dalinar orders Adolin to lead an investigation.

Kaladin discovers that for the most part, parshmen fled their employers rather than attacking. Only one attack took place during the parshmen’s theft of grain supplies. Kaladin continues to follow their trail.

Renarin approaches Adolin to relinquish the claim to the shardplate and blade that Adolin won for him. Renarin reasons that bonded Radiant spren prefer their Knights not to use the shards created when ancient Knights betrayed their oaths. Shardplates are lesser spren and splinters of Honor or Cultivation, both of whom are, like Odium, of the 16 shards of the broken Almighty. Shardblades are large and unwieldy, and usually Radiant Knights use them with shardplates in order to handle them with greater dexterity. Renarin accidentally discovers his healing powers when he heals Adolin’s hand.

In this flashback, Gavilar, Sadeas, and Dalinar lead an assault on Rathelas, also called “the Rift,” a city that historically resisted them. Dalinar fights the Rathelan highprince, Thanalan, and injures him. Dalinar then pursues Thanalan when his soldiers remove him to safety. Dalinar finds Thanalan with his young son and wife; he kills Thanalan but spares the child. He tells Gavilar that he took care of the heir.

Dalinar and the other Alethi leaders gather to communicate with other world leaders through spanreed. Each of the leaders clearly illustrates their distrust; the Azish (leaders from the nation Azir) avoid outright replies to Dalinar’s calls for an alliance and his request for them to open their Oathgate. Oathgates are teleportation structures. Twenty of them exist on Roshar, with 10 of them in Urithiu alone. Queen Fen of Thaylenah openly rejects Dalinar’s requests and his offer of Alethi troops to help rebuild her city after the destruction of the Everstorm. Taravangian, of the city-state Kharbranth and the nation of Jah Keved, is the only leader who responds positively and agrees to visit Urithiru through the Oathgates.

Adolin interrupts Shallan’s practice with Veil, a sentient persona who is good at sneaking around and sleuthing, whom Shallan can use as a disguise that increasingly becomes her alter ego. The two eat together and discuss their insecurities around relationships and Adolin’s investigation. Pattern, Shallan’s spren who lives on her garment, acts as chaperone.

Kaladin spies on a camp of transformed parshmen. He observes that they speak and behave like Alethi and do not have the burning red eyes of the Voidbringers born in the Everstorm. He decides he needs to discover their purpose, therefore he allows himself to be captured.

Shallan and Adolin struggle to find clues connecting the two murders, aside from the method of murder and the physical build of the two victims. Giving up for the night, Adolin insists that Shallan learn how to use a sword, now that she has a shardblade. Shallan panics as thoughts of using the shardblade remind her of the fact that she used hers to kill her mother. Shallan killed her mother because her mother feared Shallan’s ability as a Surgebinder, and in her fear, plotted to kill her own daughter. Shallan admired her mother’s courage to a point, but the paranoia that ravaged her mother’s mind placed Shallan in the impossible position to either die or kill. She struggles to cope with the damage this decision wrought on her psyche, often hiding in the personas her power allows her to create. To cope during Adolin’s instruction, she creates another more confident warrior persona, whom she calls Radiant.

Dalinar seeks physical exertion and contest to clear his mind but the Swordmaster’s ardents, who are priests, scholars, or monks devoted to the Vorin religion, refuse to spar with him in protest against Dalinar’s heretical marriage and statements about Honor’s death. Instead, he wrestles a young highprince’s son. During the match, he feels the Thrill and nearly loses control.

Dalinar asks Navani to set up their spanreed conversation with the queen of Rira in the sparring room so he can approach the conversation with a clear mind. Dalinar alternates between the conversation with Rira and a sparring match with Kadash, who challenges Dalinar over his heresies. Dalinar uses both the conversations and the sparring to show his men his thoughts on Vorinism and to reveal his true powers. Navani mentions Evi, Dalinar’s first wife’s name, which disappeared from Dalinar’s memory when Cultivation, pruned it after Evi’s death, which devastated him. When he hears Evi’s name, he collapses.

Kaladin travels with the parshmen as a prisoner and tries to offer them empathy over their current flight from enslavement. One of the parshmen brutally reminds Kaladin that while he was enslaved, he allowed no one to take his mind from him, as Kaladin’s people did. Kaladin watches the group struggle with basic survival skills and offers to teach them.

Disguised as Veil, Shallan visits bars set up in Urithiru. She tries to investigate the tower murders. She uses her alter ego to escape her emotional pain, but also finds it convenient for work such as the investigation. Some thugs tell her the actual events surrounding a second set of murders in the tower: A man strangled his wife, and the next day, authorities found a barmaid who was killed the same way as the previous tower murders. Everyone assumed the man committed the second crime, but he denied it until the very moment the thugs killed him. Shallan suspects there might be a murderer in the tower who imitates other acts of violence.

In a flashback, Gavilar hosts Toh, a man from the kingdom of Rira, and his sister, Evi. He attempts to convince Toh that the two, who are refugees from their home, should seek safety through an alliance with Alethi. Gavilar knows such an alliance would bring another set of shardplate to them through Evi’s inheritance. Toh believes Dalinar’s brutality, both in walking out into a storm and killing a man who attempts to assassinate Gavilar at that very feast, are signs that the Alethi are strong enough to protect him and his sister. Dalinar has always loved Navani but now knows he must give her up. He agrees to an arranged marriage with Evi.

Kaladin teaches the parshmen how to create necessary tools. He and one of the parshmen, Sah, debate over whether the parshmen should fight and kill the Alethi, and Kaladin realizes that he sympathizes with the parshmen and sees them like humans.

Hungover from her night of investigating and drinking, Shallan wakes to Adolin’s voice outside her door. He requests moral support at an interview with Ialai Sadeas, the wife of the murdered Torol Sadeas, who finally agreed to an audience with Adolin. Mraize, a member of the Ghostbloods, stands next to Ialai at the meeting. The Ghostbloods is a secret organization that tries to gain power—the same group that assassinated Jasnah and that Shallan works with, in an attempt to discover their secrets.

Adolin greets Ialai with blunt honesty and counters her veiled accusations toward Dalinar. She admits Dalinar likely did not kill Sadeas but suggests someone from his house did. She also reveals that Amaram, the man who betrayed Kaladin, arrived at Urithiru and plans to investigate the murder.

Shallan confronts Mraize under the guise of pouring drinks. He explains that Ialai is a person of interest and asks Shallan to inspect the tower for whatever is making it feel “wrong.” He uses his knowledge of Shallan’s deceased brother, Helaran, as a bargaining chip.

After the meeting, Shallan and Adolin learn that the highstorms are finally returning. Highstorms contain Stormlight, which is a kind of energy of vibration and radiance. It can be harnessed in gemstones and used to power technology and bolster the powers of the Knights Radiant. The coming of highstorms and the promise of renewed Stormlight within their gemstones, and thus more resources for the Knights Radiant to use their powers, encourages them.

Kaladin negotiates a secret shelter from a highstorm for the parshmen with the owner of a stormshelter. The group of parshmen continues to grow as they meet up with others. The Voidspren, or a corrupted spren working for Odium, confronts Kaladin to discover why he is helping the parshmen. The Voidspren suggests he might be able to join Odium’s cause instead.

Taravangian arrives in Urithiru. Dalinar knows this man’s reputation: He was once a being of great intelligence, but five years ago, a presumed illness stripped him of much of his mental capacity. Taravangian’s questions about invading other kingdoms reveal to Dalinar that every monarch he has spoken to assumed that, given the history of the Alethi as conquerors, Dalinar intends to conquer them, too.

While exploring Urithiru, Shallan tells Pattern about a play she once saw. She uses her lightweaving to create images of the story. The story features a girl who wants to know what lies beyond the walls around her home. The girl travels beyond the wall and realizes that the wall does not protect her town from those on the outside. It protects the outsiders from the town.

The illusion is Shallan’s grandest so far. It includes an audience of shadowy figures. As she dispels the illusions, Shallan sees one figure that does not fade but instead flees. She chases it into a corner, but it escapes through cracks in the wall. Shallan hears screams in the room below where the shadow escaped. In the room, Shallan discovers that a figure stabbed the hand of Rock, a member of Bridge Four. This is an imitation of the violence Veil committed against a man of the same nationality. A woman named Ishnah approaches Shallan/Veil and asks to join the Ghostbloods, an organization Shallan once infiltrated, as Veil. They are devoted to the protection of the planet Scadrial. Shallan brushes Ishnah off.

Gavilar resorts to battle once again to conquer one of the remaining Alethi princedoms; the highprince’s heir promises his loyalty, so Gavilar tells Dalinar that the current highprince, Kalanor, must die. While fighting, Dalinar falls so deeply into the Thrill that after defeating Kalanor, he seeks more destruction and nearly kills his brother. He pulls himself from the clutches of the Thrill and swears to himself never to be king.

Shallan and Pattern agree that the thing she saw slip through the cracks of the tower must be a sapient spren, one that has a humanoid shape and size without a human vessel. They suspect it imitates any violence perpetrated within Urithiru. In a meeting, the highprinces plan their next steps against the Voidbringers. Ialai Sadeas reveals that she declared Amaram regent of House Sadeas until a young male relative reaches the age of maturity.

Other nations’ leaders continue to reject Dalinar’s attempts at diplomacy and alliance. When Bridge Four discovers Sadeas’s abandoned blade and Dalinar returns it to Ialai and Amaram, Amaram confronts Dalinar over his hypocrisy: Dalinar holds Amaram’s crimes against him while Dalinar excuses his own violent past as a brutal conqueror. The two men encounter Taravangian afterward and discuss the blood they feel that leaders often must have on their hands. Taravangian’s line of thought reveals he is willing to do what is necessary to save his people, even if it means some innocents suffer. Alone, Dalinar discovers that other people can be brought into his visions, which Dalinar sees as a tool to speak with other leaders more directly and convey the seriousness of the danger from Odium.

Shallan uses her soldiers to infiltrate the bars in Urithiru. She joins them in her disguise as Veil. After a murder two nights prior, Shallan expects the spren to commit its imitation murder that night. Instead, the spren imitates the brutal execution of the murderer. Despite this surprise, Shallan and her men track the spren as it flees. Shallan sends Pattern for Adolin and his soldiers. She returns to her base persona, and with Adolin’s help, she faces what she now knows is one of the “awakened,” or more conscious and powerful, spren, known as an Unmade. This Unmade is called the Midnight Mother. The soldiers help Shallan fight her way to its core, where she places her ungloved safehand on the black mass of the Unmade. Those of the lighteyes class consider this a shocking, prohibited act. The safehand is a woman’s left hand. According to the Vorin religion, it is obscene for a woman to show her safe hand. This is because the religion outlines what activities are appropriate for men and women. Men engage in two-handed pursuits, like building and warfare, while women develop deft skills with one hand, like painting.

Shallan’s identity as a Lightweaver as well as the act of placing her safehand on the Midnight Mother, scares the spren away. Shallan theorizes a Lightweaver must have once imprisoned it. She orders guards posted in the room.

Kaladin and the parshmen arrive at a city called Revolar, where other parshmen and Fused, the embodied “gods” of the listeners, organize the arriving parshmen for work and war. A highstorm approaches and Kaladin tries to save the humans who are left without shelter. He manages to pause the highstorm momentarily and give them time to flee. The Fused spy Kaladin as he uses his powers, but Kaladin runs, heading back to Urithiru.

As Shallan rests from the ordeal with the Midnight Mother, Adolin arrives with news that Kaladin has returned and that Jasnah, the daughter of Navani and Gavilar and sister of Elhokar, who was presumed dead after an attack on her ship as she traveled to the Shattered Plains, is alive and in Urithiru. Shallan was Jasnah’s ward, an arrangement where Shallan learned scholarship from Jasnah.

Puuli is a man with blue-tinged skin who lives in a coastal town. He cleans up the destruction of the Everstorm with his neighbors and wonders if the new storm is part of the fulfillment of his grandfather’s prediction about the return of men with Light in their pockets. Puuli’s grandfather foretold that their coming brought with it the destruction of the world.

Ellista, a young ardent in a secluded monastery, wants to read in peace, but her fellow ardents make too much noise as they debate and panic over the new Everstorm and the information from Dalinar’s recent visions that allows them to translate the Dawnchant, an ancient text written in a lost language. Ellisa briefly debates ancient uses of the Dawnchant with another ardent.

Venli, a listener, descends into the chasms below the Shattered Plains with one other listener and Ulim, the spren who led her in the quest to reawaken the gods. Listeners are a subgroup of Singers and are called Parshendi by the Alethi. Venli is the listener who led her people to take on storm form and reawaken their gods. Ulim leads them to the body of Eshonai, Venli’s sister, who had tried to stop the reawakening of the gods. Ulim orders them to remove Eshonai’s shardplate and blade, despite the listener law against touching dead bodies. He chastises them, and they take the Blade and Plate. As they leave, Venli sees a small spren exit Eshonai’s body.