Kaladin- Kills Szeth

Szeth slowed, his wounds healing. He hung in front of the crashing stormwall, holding his sword before him. He took a breath, meeting Kaladin’s eyes.

An ending, then.

Kaladin drove forward, Syl forming a spear in his fingers, the most familiar weapon.

Szeth attacked in a sequence, a relentless blur of strikes.

Kaladin blocked each one. He ended with his spear against the hilt of Szeth’s Blade, pressing the two together, mere inches from the assassin’s face.

“It is actually true,” Szeth whispered.

“Yes.”

Szeth nodded, and the edge of tension seemed to fade from him, replaced by an emptiness in his eyes. “Then I was right all along. I was never Truthless. I could have stopped the murders at any time.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Kaladin said. “But you never had to kill.”

“My orders—”

“Excuses! If that was why you murdered, then you’re not the evil man I assumed. You’re a coward instead.”

Szeth looked him in the eyes, then nodded. He pushed Kaladin back, then moved to swing.

Kaladin drove his hands forward, forming Syl into a sword. He expected a parry. The move was intended to draw Szeth out of his attack pattern.

Szeth did not parry. He just closed his eyes.

Kaladin drove his Blade into the assassin’s chest right below the neck, severing the spine. Smoke burned out from beneath his eyelids, and his Blade slipped from his fingers. It did not vanish.

Words of Radiance Chapter 86