Summary:Words of Radiance
[[Category: Spoilers for Book shorthand incorrect]]
This page contains a chapter by chapter summary of Words of Radiance. 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.
These summaries were written from transcript material from readings, as such they are from early material and subject to change. all new names contain an approximation of the real name, but are not necessarily accurate.
Prologue: to Question
ca six years ago
Jasnah pleased to have extricated her self form the festivities above and about the signing of the treaty hand the assassin Liss an envelope sealed with weevil-wax. She than proceeds to tell Liss only to watch. Where as Liss mocks that assassins are really hired only to watch. After making it clear that Jasnah only wants her brother's wife watched she thinks about Liss's other name “the Weeper” and her secrets. Jasnah than proceeds to tell Liss that she will get one of her sister-in-laws attendees dismissed and that Liss need to get the job. After a short conversation about Liss's former slave, whom she sold because he was to good and creepy, Liss tells Jasnah why she likes her and Jasnah in turn tells Liss what she thinks about assassination and assassins. Jasnah reminds Liss of their first agreement, according to which Jasnah can buy any contract against her family out from Liss.
As Jasnah gets up to leave, she notices that her Shadow is behaving oddly, something she noted before. Thinking of a reference in a book she wanders about being cursed. Jasnah starts to go back up to the feast, when the drums suddenly stop. Worrying about if Dalinar could have done something to offend the other party goers and thinking about how hard she worked to get this treaty. She hastens to the feast. In one of the Hallways she overhears two men talking about a woman named Ashh and sees an Azish man with a whit birthmark or scar on his neck and considers that she should have investigated further in to them. Asking if the feast is over already and receiving a single word answer, she leaves the men behind feeling uncomfortable, under the Azishman's gaze.
Part One:
Chapter 1: Santhid
To be perfectly frank, what has happened these last two months is upon my head. The death, destruction, loss, and pain are my burden. I should have seen it coming. And I should have stopped it.
Chapter 2: Bridge Four
Our first clue was the Parshendi. Even weeks before they abandoned their pursuit of the gemhearts, their pattern of fighting changed. They lingered on the plateaus after battles, as if waiting for something.
Chapter 3: Pattern
Soldiers reported being watched from afar by an unnerving number of Parshendi scouts. Then we noticed a new pattern of their penetrating close to the camps in the night and then quickly retreating. I can only surmise that our enemies were even then preparing their stratagem to end this war.
Chapter 4: Taker of Secrets
The next clue came on the walls. I did not ignore this sign, but neither did I grasp its full implications.
Chapter 5: Ideals
The sign on the wall proposed a greater danger, even, than its deadline. To foresee the future is of the Voidbringers.
Chapter 6:
Kaladin
Chapter 7:
Shallan
Chapter 8:
Shallan
Chapter 9:
Dalinar
Chapter 10:
Kaladin
Chapter 11: Red Carpet, Once White
Flashback Shallan
Shallan
Shallan believing the world is ending and it being her fault is crying. As her father tries getting her to sleep he wipes some blood from her face and starts singing a lullaby. Shallan thinks her self to be a monster that kills and thus unworthy of the love and affection her father is giving her. In the room there are several corpses one of them being a woman in white, Shallan's mother. She didn't bleed very much but the other man did. As Shallan and her father pass the his save in the wall Shallan can see the light form the “monster” coming from inside of it. After the song ends her father leaves the bedroom closing the door on the corpses.
“Sleep now dear one, crimson sky will fall behind you.
Through rock and dread, through rock and dread, may be your dead, you will sleep my loved one dear. Now comes the storm, that you'll be warm, the wind may shake your dreams. The crystals fine, will glow sublime, so sleep my loved one dear. And like a song, it wont be long, you sleep my loved one dear.
”
—The lullaby Shallan's father recites in the chapter Red Carpet, Once WhiteCite error: Invalid<ref>tag; refs with no name must have content
Chapter 12:
Shallan
Chapter 13:
Kaladin
Interludes
Interlude I-1: Eshonai
Interlude I-2: Rysn
Interlude I-3: Ym
Interlude I-4: Eshonai
Part Two:
Chapter 14:
Shallan
Chapter 15:
Adolin
Chapter 16:
Shallan
Chapter 17:
Kaladin
Interludes
Interlude I-5: Taravangian
Taravangian awakes on a ship with stiff mussels, but noting that he doesn't feel stupid, which he considers a good sign. He notes that his ship has moored on time, when his servants arrive. Maban brings him his morning meal, but is stopped by Mrall, one of the Kings testers. He wants Taravangian to take the test first since it is an important day and he want to know what to expect. Taravangian agrees with him and Mrall lets the testers approach. The three stormwardens give the King some paper on which some math-problems are put down with in figures and glyphs. Taravangian made these him self on one of his better day's and even though he knows he is not a complete idiot, he finds that he is only average on this day. After checking the papers the stomwardens judge: “He is fit to serve,” one proclaimed. “He may not change the Diagram, but he may interact outside of supervision, may change policy, and pass judgment.” Mrall after getting Taravangian's acceptance lets Maban bring him his breakfast. Taravangian considers that even though it always takes up one hour of every day the test is the best way for a man who wakes up every morning with a different level of intelligence. He contemplate that life can be tricky especially when the world might depend of him.
Interlude I-9:Lift
Ars Arcanum
Notes