Summary:The Way of Kings

This page contains a chapter by chapter summary of The Way of Kings. We hope this summary will make it easier to find specific areas of the book, as well as providing a quick plot refresher for anyone who doesn't want to take the time to reread the entire book. Similar Summaries will be completed about future books in the Stormlight Archive.

Editing Note from Andrew: I'm posting these as I read the chapters on my re-read, and they're bound to be messy. If you want to clean them up in any way, feel free.

Prelude to the Stormlight Archive

The Prelude opens just after one of the Desolations (huge battles between humanity and the Voidbringers). Kalak, one of the Ten Heralds of the Almighty, is walking the desolated battlefield. The landscape is torn and ruined, apparently due to Surgebinders fighting and thunderclasts ripping themselves free from the ground. Kalak expresses relief that he didn't die in the battle (He's apparently died before), and also reveals that after each Desolation, the Heralds are supposed to return to an unspecified location where they are tortured until the next desolation. He contemplates just walking away instead.

Kalak goes to meet the other nine Heralds in the location they had chosen before the battle. Instead of the other nine, however, he finds only one waiting for him. That Herald, Jezrien, explains to Kalak that one of the Heralds (Talenel) was killed, and was sent back automatically to their place of torture. The rest of them decided that rather than face the torture again, they would simply go their separate ways.

Jezrien alludes to the Oathpact, apparently an agreement among the Heralds and possibly with some other entity, and says it is time for the Oathpact to end. Talenel, who was killed, will still be bound to the Oathpact. The other Heralds, by abandoning Talenel and walking away, apparently remove themselves from the Oathpact.

The Heralds leave, abandoning mankind to the care of the Knights Radiant and Talenel. They plan to tell the men they fought with that they had finally beaten the Voidbringers for good. The Heralds go their separate ways. Kalak looks back at the ring formed by the Heralds' abandoned swords, and thinks about Talenel and his fate. He silently pleads for forgiveness, but leaves anyway.