“Please,” Tanalan said, clothing ashen from the smoke, as he was hauled up over the stone rim. “My family. Please.”
Dalinar could hear them screaming below. He whispered an order, and his elites pushed back the regular Kholin troops from the area, opening up a wide half-circle against the burning rift, where only Dalinar and his closest men were able to observe the captive.
Tanalan slumped on the ground. “Please…”
“I,” Dalinar said softly, “am an animal.”
“What—”
“An animal,” Dalinar said, “reacts as it is prodded. You whip it, and it becomes savage. With an animal, you can start a tempest. Trouble is, once it’s gone feral, you can’t just whistle it back to you.”
“Blackthorn!” Tanalan screamed. “Please! My children.”
“I made a mistake years ago,” Dalinar said. “I will not be so foolish again.”
And yet … those screams.
Dalinar’s soldiers seized Tanalan tightly as Dalinar turned from the man and walked back to the pit of fire. Sadeas had just arrived with a company of his own men, but Dalinar ignored them, Oathbringer still held against his shoulder. Smoke stung Dalinar’s nose, his eyes watering. He couldn’t see across the Rift to the rest of his armies; the air warped with heat, colored red.
It was like looking into Damnation itself.
Dalinar released a long breath, suddenly feeling his exhaustion even more deeply. “It is enough,” he said, turning toward Sadeas. “Let the rest of the people of the city escape out the mouth of the canyon below. We have sent our signal.”
“What?” Sadeas said, hiking over. “Dalinar—”
A loud series of cracks interrupted him. An entire section of the city nearby collapsed into the flames. The palace—and its occupants—crashed down with it, a tempest of sparks and splintering wood.
“No!” Tanalan shouted. “NO!”
“Dalinar…” Sadeas said. “I prepared a battalion below, with archers, per your orders.”
“My orders?”
“You said to ‘Kill anyone who comes out of the city and leave their bodies to rot.’ I had men stationed below; they’ve launched arrows in at the city struts, burned the walkways leading down. This city burns from both directions—from underneath and from above. We can’t stop it now.”
Wood cracked as more sections of city collapsed. The Thrill surged, and Dalinar pushed it away. “We’ve gone too far.”
“Nonsense! Our lesson won’t mean much if people can merely walk away.” Sadeas glanced toward Tanalan. “Last loose end is this one. We don’t want him getting away again.” He reached for his sword.
“I’ll do it,” Dalinar said. Though the concept of more death was starting to sicken him, he steeled himself. This was the man who had betrayed him.
Dalinar stepped closer. To his credit, Tanalan tried to leap to his feet and fight. Several elites shoved the traitor back down to the ground, though Captainlord Kadash himself was just standing at the side of the city, looking down at the destruction. Dalinar could feel that heat, so terrible. It mirrored a sense within him. The Thrill … incredibly … was not satisfied. Still it thirsted. It didn’t seem … didn’t seem it could be satiated.
Tanalan collapsed, blubbering.
“You should not have betrayed me,” Dalinar whispered, raising Oathbringer. “At least this time, you didn’t hide in your hole. I don’t know who you let take cover there, but know they are dead. I took care of that with barrels of fire.”
Tanalan blinked, then started laughing with a frantic, crazed air. “You don’t know? How could you not know? But you killed our messengers. You poor fool. You poor, stupid fool.”
Dalinar seized him by the chin, though the man was still held by his soldiers. “What?”
“She came to us,” Tanalan said. “To plead. How could you have missed her? Do you track your own family so poorly? The hole you burned … we don’t hide there anymore. Everyone knows about it. Now it’s a prison.”
Ice washed through Dalinar, and he grabbed Tanalan by the throat and held, Oathbringer slipping from his fingers. He strangled the man, all the while demanding that he retract what he’d said.
Tanalan died with a smile on his lips. Dalinar stepped back, suddenly feeling too weak to stand. Where was the Thrill to bolster him? “Go back,” he shouted at his elites. “Search that hole. Go…” He trailed off.
Kadash was on his knees, looking woozy, a pile of vomit on the rock before him. Some elites ran to try to do as Dalinar said, but they shied away from the Rift—the heat rising from the burning city was incredible.
Dalinar roared, standing, pushing toward the flames. However, the fire was too intense. Where he had once seen himself as an unstoppable force, he now had to admit exactly how small he was. Insignificant. Meaningless.
Once it’s gone feral, you can’t just whistle it back to you.
He fell to his knees, and remained there until his soldiers pulled him—limp—away from the heat and carried him to his camp.
Six hours later, Dalinar stood with hands clasped behind his back—partially to hide how badly they were shaking—and stared at a body on the table, covered in a white sheet.
Behind him in the tent, some of his scribes whispered. A sound like swishing swords on the practice field. Teleb’s wife, Kalami, led the discussion; she thought that Evi must have defected. What else could explain why the burned corpse of a highprince’s wife had been found in an enemy safehouse?
It fit the narrative. Showing uncharacteristic determination, Evi had drugged the guard protecting her. She’d snuck away in the night. The scribes wondered how long Evi had been a traitor, and if she’d helped recruit the group of scouts who had betrayed Dalinar.
He stepped forward, resting his fingers on the smooth, too-white sheet. Fool woman. The scribes didn’t know Evi well enough. She hadn’t been a traitor—she’d gone to the Rift to plead for them to surrender. She’d seen in Dalinar’s eyes that he wouldn’t spare them. So, Almighty help her, she’d gone to do what she could.
Dalinar barely had the strength to stand. The Thrill had abandoned him, and that left him broken, pained.
He pulled back the corner of the sheet. The left side of Evi’s face was scorched, nauseating, but the right side had been down toward the stone. It was oddly untouched.
This is your fault, he thought at her. How dare you do this? Stupid, frustrating woman.
This was not his fault, not his responsibility.
“Dalinar,” Kalami said, stepping up. “You should rest.”
“She didn’t betray us,” Dalinar said firmly.
“I’m sure eventually we’ll know what—”
“She did not betray us,” Dalinar snapped. “Keep the discovery of her body quiet, Kalami. Tell the people … tell them my wife was slain by an assassin last night. I will swear the few elites who know to secrecy. Let everyone think she died a hero, and that the destruction of the city today was done in retribution.”
Dalinar set his jaw. Earlier today, the soldiers of his army—so carefully trained over the years to resist pillaging and the slaughter of civilians—had burned a city to the ground. It would ease their consciences to think that first, the highlady had been murdered.
Kalami smiled at him, a knowing—even self-important—smile. His lie would serve a second purpose. As long as Kalami and the head scribes thought they knew a secret, they’d be less likely to dig for the true answer.