“You want me to lead the caravan?”“Instructions will be acceptable.”“All right. First, find a cliff.”“That, it will give you a vantage to see the area?”“No,” Kaladin said. “It will give me something to throw you off of.”
“I need you, Teft,” Kaladin said.“I said—”“Not your food. You. Your loyalty. Your allegiance.”The older man continued to eat. He didn’t have a slave brand, and neither did Rock. Kaladin didn’tknow their stories. All he knew was that these two had helped when others hadn’t. They weren’tcompletely beaten down.“Teft—” Kaladin began.“I’ve given my loyalty before,” the man said. “Too many times now. Always works out the same.”“Your trust gets betrayed?” Kaladin asked softly.Teft snorted. “Storms, no. I betray it. You can’t depend on me, son. I belong here, as abridgeman.”“I depended on you yesterday, and you impressed me.”“Fluke.”“I’ll judge that,” Kaladin said. “Teft, we’re all broken, in one way or another. Otherwise wewouldn’t be bridgemen. I’ve failed. My own brother died because of me.”“So why keep caring?”“It’s either that or give up and die.”“And if death is better?”It came back to this problem. This was why the bridgemen didn’t care if he helped the wounded ornot.“Death isn’t better,” Kaladin said, looking Teft in the eyes. “Oh, it’s easy to say that now. But whenyou stand on the ledge and look down into that dark, endless pit, you change your mind. Just likeHobber did. Just like I’ve done.” He hesitated, seeing something in the older man’s eyes. “I think you’veseen it too.”“Aye,” Teft said softly. “Aye, I have.”“So, are you with us in this thing?” Rock said, squatting down.Us? Kaladin thought, smiling faintly.Teft looked back and forth between the two of them. “I get to keep my food?”“Yes,” Kaladin said.Teft shrugged. “All right then, I guess. Can’t be any harder than sitting here and having a staringcontest with mortality.”
“Authority doesn't come from a rank.," Kaladin said, fingering the spheres in his pocket."Where does it come from?""From the men who give it to you. That's the only way to get it.”
“What did you put in the fire?" Kaladin said. "To make that special smoke?""Nothing. It was just and ordinary fire.""But, I saw-""What you saw belongs to you. A story doesn't live until it is imagined in someone's mind.""What does the story mean, then?""It means what you want it to mean," Hoid said. "The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think , but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.”
“Of all the recruits in his cohort, he had learned the quickest. How to hold the spear, how to stand tospar. He’d done it almost without instruction. That had shocked Tukks. But why should it have? Youwere not shocked when a child knew how to breathe. You were not shocked when a skyeel took flightfor the first time. You should not be shocked when you hand Kaladin Stormblessed a spear and heknows how to use it.”
“A man is what he has passion about,” Breeze said. “I’ve found that if you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll just end up miserable.”
“If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.”