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*Twenty-three years ago.* Szeth-son-Neturo no longer dances with the wind. Three years into life at the Shin soldier camp outside the Stoneward monastery, he wins his sparring bouts by brute repetition — practising every evening while the others rest. The latest challenger is the mountain-built Jormo-son-Falk. Szeth trips him, embarrasses him, and knows he will pay for it on the roof tonight when Jormo comes back with friends. The Voice — present in his head for a few years now, increasingly able to read his thoughts — tells him to hit Jormo hard when he comes again. He does, dropping him a second time.

Jormo breaks discipline and grapples. Slammed against the dirt, Szeth's hand closes on a half-buried rock — and he deliberately lets it go. *Not again.* Once before he lost control with a stone, and death followed. He will never lose it again. Jormo is hauled off him by Sergeant Szrand — the thick-armed, thick-witted yard sergeant who has never been able to teach footings properly and from whom Szeth long since graduated to the shaman acolytes. Szrand turns on Szeth instead, demands sixteen laps for trouble he did not cause. Szeth refuses; Szrand picks up a practice blade and shield; Szeth leaves him on the ground holding his leg. *Not impossibly timid after all*, the Voice observes. *For insulting me, I would have gone much further.*

His mother flags him down on the third lap with a waterskin. Three years on, she still seems dulled without the splash of colour she used to wear — *Mother, why do you push yourself so hard?* — *I am here, so I will do as the place demands.* She suggests, gently, that if he washed out and went to the mines they might have solid work and ordinary lives again. He cannot wash out; he is too good. He runs on, fingering the small fleece sheep of Molli in his belt pouch, and notes — without saying so — that his sister Elid is everywhere effortlessly liked while he is impeccable in duty and everywhere jeered.

The second half of his punishment is a note: report to the General's office. He passes the General's parrot cages with dread and finds his father Neturo at the outer desk — too solid, Szeth thinks, for a chair. Neturo hugs him, smiles, and is mildly amused at the news that Szeth laid Szrand flat. He sketches the long-term plan he is quietly building with General Kinal: retire Szrand, slot in Yago-son-Yargo, and when *he* retires in five years or so, install Szeth as the new master of the training grounds — a permanent post for the family, a place his mother might enjoy. Szeth notes the quiet inference that this would also mean never having to march out and kill.

But Neturo has not summoned him for discipline. He leads Szeth up the cliff path to the Stoneward monastery — dedicated to the lost Stoneward Herald and currently without an Honorbearer of its own. There they join General Kinal and a visiting party. The senior visitor is Pozen-son-Nash, a short bald shaman in brilliant light blue robes, his Honorblade driven six inches into the path before him — the first time Szeth has ever seen one. He is mesmerised. *Do you want to hold one?* the Voice asks. *Yes. Yes.* *The time is not right. Perhaps it never will be. But I am watching you.*

Pozen takes Neturo in approvingly — the secretary who has turned a difficult camp around — and Szeth forces himself to ask the question he has carried for years. *Honor-nimi, how do you know what is right?* Pozen tells him to listen to his superiors; the chain of command runs through the Heralds to the Lifebrother and the spren of mountains, sun, and moons, and from them to God. Szeth presses — *but truth seems different for different people, how do you know* — and is told again to follow what he is told and count himself lucky. Then a second voice intervenes: a second Honorbearer in violet robes, short dark hair deliberately spiked. *I have trouble hurting people*, Szeth admits. *I do not see this as a flaw*, Sivi tells him. *An unfortunate truth, but this one is destined for administration.*

Pozen disagrees — what they consistently promote out of battle is the very temperament battle most needs — and turns the question back. *Young man, what do you want to do?* *What is right*, Szeth says at once. *Then do this.* One shift a week at the camp slaughterhouse. A posting to the rear guard the next time raiders strike. *Will you follow my orders to the best of your understanding?* — *Is it right?* — *I say that it is. Do you believe me?* What else can he say to a man finally willing to be firm? He nods. And is sent to learn how to kill.