Summary:The Way of Kings/Prologue
| Prologue: To Kill | |
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| The Way of Kings Summary | |
| Follows | Prelude |
| Precedes | Chapter 1 |
| Analytics | |
| Viewpoint | Szeth |
| Word Count | 6,128 |
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." ”
—Collected on the first day of the week Palah of the month Shash of the year 1171, thirty-one seconds before death. Subject was a darkeyed pregnant woman of middle years. The child did not survive.
Plot Summary
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.
When he reaches the area just outside the King's quarters, Szeth uses his abilities as a Surgebinder to fight his way past the guards. As he reaches the king's quarters, he is confronted by a Shardbearer as the King flees.
Szeth fights his way past the Shardbearer but soon realizes that the Shardbearer, not the man he is chasing, is King Gavilar. He returns and fights him, eventually defeating him by causing the balcony he is standing on to collapse, mortally wounding him. Szeth is nearly killed in the fight. When Szeth tells Gavilar the Parshendi sent him, Gavilar is confused and says, "The Parshendi? That makes no sense."
Gavilar then gives Szeth a strange black sphere and tells him, "You must take this. They must not get it." He then instructs Szeth to tell Gavilar's brother Dalinar that he must "find the most important words a man can say."
As a Shin, Szeth considers a dying wish to be sacred, so he leaves a note for Dalinar written in Gavilar's blood. He takes the sphere and flees.
Characters
- Present
- Szeth (point of view)
- Dalinar Kholin
- Elhokar Kholin
- Gavilar Kholin
- Torol Sadeas
- Mentioned
Setting
The Royal Palace in Kholinar, Alethkar, the night of the assassination of King Gavilar.
Chapter Header
- Szeth Icon
- Jezrien wedge