Deadeye
The class of Shadesmar spren left after a Knights Radiant bond is broken — their eyes scratched out as if a knife had been taken to the face, unbled and unscarred, simply erased. In the world they exist as the dead Shardblades inherited from order to order; in Shadesmar they walk silent, drifting after the people who carry their corresponding Blades. SA:RoW:Ch 22
Known facts
- new-deadeyes-are-appearing-in-the-present-dayAccording to an inkspren shopkeeper in the coastal waystop, at least one Cryptic became a deadeye only recently — within the last year — having left a decade ago to hunt for new Radiants. The implication is that a present-day Radiant has broken their oaths and killed their spren. Spren in Shadesmar are beginning to worry.SA:RoW:Ch 30
- gather-silently-outside-lasting-integrityAbout two weeks before Adolin's trial, deadeyes begin congregating on the coast outside Lasting Integrity — first a handful, then over two hundred, standing motionless and silent. Many of them are Shardblades whose forms vanish into mist when their owners summon them in the Physical Realm. The honorspren cannot account for the behaviour and have closed their gates to further arrivals; Vaiu speculates the deadeyes feel the coming trial through the spiritweb of Roshar herself.SA:RoW:Ch 75
- broken-bond-was-meant-to-be-survivablePattern and Kelek together conclude that at the Recreance the ancient Radiants and their spren both expected the breaking of their oaths to be painful but survivable — the deadeye state was something that went wrong, not the intended cost. The model: a clean cut leaves a clean break, a ragged cut leaves Testament.SA:WaT:Ch 1
- broken-bonds-changed-when-mishram-was-imprisonedPer Maya and Pattern — and what Shallan and Kelek piece together at Lasting Integrity — the deadeye state came into being on the day Mishram was sealed away. Mishram had Connected to Roshar and become like a god to the singers; her imprisonment entangled humans, Honor, the spren and the bonds, and broke broken bonds into something they had not been before.SA:WaT:Ch 3
- drift-back-to-lost-bladesMaya explains on the Shadesmar shore outside Lasting Integrity that some deadeyes are tied to Shardblades long abandoned — left in stone, in water, in sunken ships. People stop thinking about those weapons, the Blades fade out of the Physical Realm after centuries, and the bonded spren wanders forever, lost.SA:WaT:Ch 7
Events
- SA:RoW:Ch 75 Two hundred and counting gathered on the coast outside the fortress, silent and motionless; many of them Shardblades whose forms vanish into mist when summoned in the Physical Realm. A Cryptic deadeye — head in twisted shadow, robe stiff and dusty like Pattern's — stands among the statues in the garden, brought forward as the one Pattern wants Shallan to meet.
- SA:WaT:Ch 135 Perhaps fifty deadeyes of every type — cultivationspren, peakspren, honorspren, ashspren, plus Plate spren riding others like barnacles — lurch out of the bead-sea behind Maya and raise their right fists in an ancient duelist's salute. They have come because Adolin needs allies.
Backreferences
- summarySA:OB:Ch 101
- factCaptain Ico
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 22
- factDreaming-though-Awake
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 29
- factMayalaran
- factDeadeye
- factDeadeye Cryptic
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 35
- factMayalaran
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 75
- factDeadeye
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 78
- factShallan's First Cryptic
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 94
- factBlended
- factTestament
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 1
- factDeadeye
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 3
- factDeadeye
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 7
- factDeadeye
- factAdolin Kholin
- factVienta
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 135
- factMayalaran
- factAdolin Kholin
- factThe Unoathed
- factNotum