Difference between revisions of "Summary:The Way of Kings"

== Prelude to the Stormlight Archive ==

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[[Kalak]], one of the ten [[Herald]]s, wanders through a torn landscape littered with dead humans, [[thunderclast]]s, and other beasts. He is traveling to the Heralds' preordained meeting place (a rocky spire) for those who survived the [[Desolation]].

{{/icon|Szeth}}

{{epigraph|The love of men is a frigid thing, a mountain stream only three steps from the ice. We are his. Oh Stormfather...we are his. It is but a thousand days, and the Everstorm comes.}}

 

4500 years later, [[Szeth]], a [[Truthless]] [[Shin]] assassin, waits quietly in a large room, watching the [[Alethi]] celebrate the signing of a peace treaty with the [[Parshendi]]. He leaves the room, noting that his Parshendi masters will soon withdraw. Szeth wears white under the orders of the Parshendi to follow their traditions so that King [[Gavilar]] could see him coming.

:''Five years later''

 

 

[[Cenn]], a new recruit in Brightlord [[Meridas Amaram]]'s army, is terrified. He is about to face his first battle and has no real idea of what to expect. Cenn is pulled into a new squad, that of [[Kaladin|Kaladin Stormblessed]], at the last minute for reasons he doesn't understand.

:''Eight Months Later''

 

 

Kaladin is now a slave in a caravan, waiting to be sold, and struggling to retain his ability to not think like a slave.

{{epigraph|A man stood on a cliffside and watched his homeland fall into dust. The waters surged beneath, so far beneath. And he heard a child crying. They were his own tears.}}

 

 

[[Shallan Davar]] has just arrived in [[Kharbranth]], the City of Bells. She experiences a culture-shock of sorts, amazed at the number and variety of people in the city.

{{epigraph|I'm dying, aren't I? Healer, why do you take my blood? Who is that beside you, with his head of lines? I can see a distant sun, dark and cold, shining in a black sky.}}

 

 

Kaladin is sitting in the slave wagon, waiting for the caravan to stop for lunch, noting that it's well after the time the caravan usually stops. After a few minutes, he realizes that it is because Tvlakv is lost. Tvlakv remembers that Kaladin was once an Alethi soldier, and might have knowledge of the lands. When he asks Kaladin to help them find the way out, Kaladin tears his map to pieces and tells Tvlakv that he doesn't know the way out.

{{epigraph|I have seen the end, and have heard it named. The Night of Sorrows, the True Desolation. The Everstorm.}}

 

 

As Shallan meets Jasnah Kholin for the first time, she admires Jasnah as the ideal beauty – tall, Alethi tan skin, long dark hair. She is talking to a man who Shallan later identifies as [[Taravangian|King Taravangian]] of Kharbranth.

{{epigraph|I'm cold. Mother, I'm cold. Mother? Why can I still hear the rain? Will it stop?}}

 

 

Kaladin and the rest of the slave caravan have arrived at the Shattered Plains, specifically at the warcamp of [[Highprince]] [[Torol Sadeas|Sadeas]]. They are taken to a woman who is to decide whether she can use any of the slaves or not. When Kaladin tries to convince her to let him fight, Tvlakv tells her that Kaladin is a deserter, dashing his hopes.

{{epigraph|They are aflame. They burn. They bring the darkness when they come, and so all you can see is that their skin is aflame. Burn, burn, burn...}}

 

 

Shallan is en route to the Palanaeum, hoping to convince Jasnah that she is worthy to be her ward. She believes that it is critical that she find a way to do so, as without her father, her family can no longer Soulcast its way into wealth or manipulate others into doing as they want.

{{epigraph|Victory! We stand atop the mount! We scatter them before us! Their homes become our dens, their lands are now our farms! And they shall burn, as we once did, in a place that is hollow and forlorn.}}

 

 

Jasnah scolds Shallan, telling her that she had already made her decision. Shallan is embarrassed that she disturbed Jasnah again and leaves. After only a few moments, however, Jasnah calls her back and apologizes to her and gives her Shallan's money pouch that she had left behind.

{{epigraph|Ten people, with Shardblades alight, standing before a wall of black and white and red.}}

 

 

Kaladin has now been a member of the bridge crews for somewhere between two to four weeks. Of the twenty five who survived his first bridge run, only one other man is still alive.

:''Nine Years Earlier''

 

 

Kal (his nickname as a boy) helps his father, [[Lirin]], treat a young woman, [[Sani]]. He reflects over the course of the surgery on how his family is treated so differently because of his father's career.

{{epigraph|Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns.}}

 

 

Kaladin is outside just after a [[highstorm]], going to the [[Honor Chasm]] to commit suicide. Gaz stops him, accusing him of trying to steal spheres left out in the Highstorm from others, but Kaladin simply ignores him and goes.