The Stormlight Archive

Kaladin Stormblessed enters the next book transformed from the broken slave he was for most of this volume. Betrayed and branded a slave by Lord Amaram after refusing to claim a defeated Shardbearer's Blade and Plate for himself, he spent the war as a bridgeman under Highprince Sadeas, hauling assault bridges into archer fire. He bonded with an amnesiac spren, Sylphrena (Syl), who turns out to be an Honorspren, and discovered he can draw on Stormlight for superhuman strength, speed, and rapid healing after surviving a highstorm exposure meant to kill him. He rallied his bridge crew, Bridge Four, into a genuine fighting unit and, at the Battle of the Tower, used his powers to save Highprince Dalinar Kholin's army after Sadeas treacherously abandoned them. As the book ends, Kaladin has been made captain of Dalinar's personal guard, with Bridge Four serving as his honor guard — a huge rise in status, though he remains a branded slave and his powers are still not understood, even by himself.

Dalinar Kholin, uncle to King Elhokar, spent the book plagued by visions during highstorms showing the ancient Knights Radiant and urging him to unite his allies, leading many (including his son Adolin) to question his sanity. After Sadeas's betrayal at the Tower nearly destroyed his army, Dalinar traded his Shardblade Oathbringer to free the two thousand bridgemen Sadeas controlled, was named Highprince of War, and began imposing a stricter code of conduct on the Alethi armies, alienating other highprinces. He has resolved to try to found the Knights Radiant anew, convinced a great catastrophe is approaching. His relationship with Navani, his brother's widow, has also begun turning romantic.

Shallan Davar traveled to Kharbranth to become the ward of Jasnah Kholin, the king's heretical scholar sister, intending to steal Jasnah's Soulcaster to save her family's fortunes — which she ultimately does. In the process she grew to genuinely respect Jasnah, survived an assassination attempt by an ardent named Kabsal (revealed to be a Ghostblood agent, connected to her own late father's secret ties to that organization), and discovered — astonishingly — that she and Jasnah can Soulcast without any physical device at all. Jasnah's research suggests the Parshendi, the humanoid race Alethkar is at war with, may be responsible for an ancient near-destruction of humanity misattributed to mythical Voidbringers, a mystery left unresolved.

Elsewhere, Szeth, the Shin assassin who killed King Gavilar in the prologue and several other rulers since, learned his true employer all along has been King Taravangian of Kharbranth, who uses a secret hospital to collect prophetic "death rattles" from the dying as part of some larger scheme. In the closing epilogue, the storyteller Hoid witnessed a Shardbearer calling himself Taln — the last of the ten ancient Heralds — burst into Kholinar warning that the "Everstorm" is coming before collapsing, with Hoid remarking that the warning has come too late. Going into the next book, open threads include: the true nature and origin of Kaladin's powers and Syl; Dalinar's visions and his push to reform the Knights Radiant amid political opposition; Shallan and Jasnah's impossible Soulcasting ability and the looming threat of the Ghostbloods; the true history and intentions of the Parshendi; and the ominous, unexplained warning about the Everstorm and Taln's return.

Words of Radiance picks up after the assassination of King Gavilar and the founding of the Alethi Vengeance Pact against the Parshendi. Jasnah Kholin, having discovered she can Soulcast and having witnessed her father's murder by Szeth years earlier, is investigating the Parshendi's history and the nature of the coming Desolation, with her ward Shallan Davar in tow. Their ship is attacked and Jasnah is believed killed; Shallan escapes with Jasnah's research and resolves to continue the mission alone, having learned that the Parshendi and the Voidbringers are one and the same people.

Shallan travels to the Shattered Plains, befriending a spren she names Pattern and developing her own Surgebinding powers. Along the way she kills the con-artist Tyn (who had orchestrated the attack on Jasnah), assumes her identity, and infiltrates the secretive Ghostbloods, who are hunting for lost knowledge about the Radiants and Urithiru. She uncovers her own dark past: she killed her abusive mother as a child in self-defense, and her father took the blame and was destroyed by guilt. By the book's end the Ghostbloods know her true identity and have recruited her, and she is betrothed to Adolin Kholin.

Kaladin, having survived his period as a military slave, is given command of the royal bodyguard, a controversial appointment for a darkeyes. He bonds ever more deeply with his honorspren Syl and slowly develops Windrunner powers. He clashes with Brightlord Amaram, who once stole his Shardblade and had his friends killed, but is initially rebuffed when he tells Dalinar the truth. His old friend Moash draws him into a conspiracy to assassinate King Elhokar, and Kaladin nearly turns a blind eye to it out of contempt for the king's weak leadership. During a chasm mission with Shallan, the two grow close and he loses (and later regains) his connection to Syl. When Moash ultimately betrays and nearly kills him, Kaladin speaks the Third Ideal, reunites with Syl in living Shardblade form, and his powers are fully restored. He publicly exposes Amaram's crimes, ending Amaram's reputation.

Dalinar continues his effort to unify the fractious Alethi highprinces and restore the Knights Radiant, all while receiving mysterious countdown messages in his quarters (later revealed to be left by his son Renarin, who turns out to be a Truthwatcher Radiant). Adolin duels rival lighteyes for their Shards to strengthen his father's position, and ultimately kills the treacherous Highprince Sadeas after Sadeas's repeated betrayals culminate in an assassination attempt that nearly kills both Kaladin and Shallan. Among the Parshendi, the researcher Venli develops a new "Stormform" that her sister Eshonai, the Parshendi war leader, adopts first; it grants great power but is driven by Odium and turns Eshonai increasingly violent and unstable, setting the Parshendi on a path to summon the catastrophic Everstorm.

The book climaxes with the Alethi assault on the Parshendi capital, Narak, coinciding with the Parshendi's summoning of the Everstorm. Eshonai is defeated and falls into a chasm during the battle. Szeth, the Assassin in White, confronts and nearly kills Dalinar, but Kaladin intervenes and defeats him in an aerial duel; Szeth, accepting that Kaladin is a true Radiant, surrenders his Honorblade and falls, seemingly to his death (though he later resurfaces, healed, and is recruited by the Herald Nale as a new kind of Radiant, a Skybreaker, wielding the sentient blade Nightblood). Shallan discovers and activates an ancient Oathgate, teleporting Dalinar's entire army to the lost Radiant city of Urithiru. There, Dalinar bonds with the spren called the Stormfather and becomes a Bondsmith Radiant, and Renarin reveals his own Radiant powers. Kaladin, healed, sets off for his hometown of Hearthstone to see his family.

Going into the next book, the surviving cast is now based at Urithiru: Dalinar as a Bondsmith, Kaladin as a Windrunner, Shallan as a developing Radiant and secret Ghostblood, and Renarin as a Truthwatcher. Adolin has killed Sadeas and discarded the family Shardblade Oathbringer, leaving political fallout unresolved. The Everstorm now circles the world alongside the highstorms, turning parshmen everywhere into aggressive Voidbringer-aligned Stormform, a looming worldwide threat. Moash remains at large, embittered and aware of a mysterious "Diagram" tied to King Taravangian, who has secretly been manipulating world events and has just seized the throne of Jah Keved. Szeth is alive and has become a Skybreaker under Herald Nale. And Jasnah, believed dead, is revealed in the epilogue to have survived in the shadow realm of Shadesmar, where she is approached by the enigmatic Hoid with an offer of alliance — a thread left open for the next installment.