the WAY of KINGS - Brandon Sanderson

1 The WAY ofKINGSPRIMETHE 2002 ALTERNATE VERSIONFICTION BY Brandon Sanderson THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE The Way of KingsWords of RadianceOathbringerTHE MISTBORN SAGATHE ORIGINAL TRILOGYM istborn: The Final EmpireThe Well of AscensionThe Hero of AgesTHE WAX & WAYNE SERIESThe Alloy of LawShadows of SelfThe Bands of MourningTHE RECKONERS SteelheartFirefightCalamitySKYWARDS kywardStarsightALCATRAZ VS. THE EVIL LIBRARIANSA lcatraz vs. the Evil LibrariansThe Scrivener s BonesThe Knights of CrystalliaThe Shattered LensThe Dark TalentNOVELSE lantrisWarbreakerThe RithmatistNOVELETTESF irstbornDefending ElysiumMitosis: A Reckoners StoryNOVELLASP erfect StateSnapshotChildren of the NamelessINFINITY BLADEI nfinity Blade: AwakeningInfinity Blade: RedemptionCOLLECTIONSA rcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere CollectionLegion: The Many Lives of Stephen LeedsGRAPHIC NOVELSW hite Sand, Volumes 1 3 Dark OneTHE WHEEL OF TIME, with Robert JordanThe Gathering StormTowers of MidnightA Memory of LightSANDERSON CURIOSITIESThe Way of KINGS PrimeThis is a work of fiction.

2 All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author s imagination or are used way of KINGS PrimeCopyright 2020 by Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLCAll rights Dragonsteel Entertainment Book Published by Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC American Fork, Sanderson , The Stormlight Archive , Mistborn , Cosmere , Reckoners , Dragonsteel Entertainment , and the logo are registered trademarks of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLCISBN 978-1-938570-24-7 First Dragonsteel Edition: December 2020 Printed in the United States of America0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1the WAY ofKINGSPRIMES anderson CuriositiesBRANDON SANDERSONA Dragonsteel Entertainment Book THE 2002 ALTERNATE VERSIONINTRODUCTIONThis book is both one of my greatest accomplishments and one of my greatest started it during a difficult time in my life. I d graduated with my undergraduate degree in English in 2000, but had been summarily rejected from every graduate program to which I d applied.

3 (The book Elantris was my writing sample for those submissions.) The publishing industry didn t want my books either; I d been racking up a nice stack of rejections saying my books were too top of it all, I d just finished writing what I consider two of the weak-est books of my career. (Though later on the ideas from these unpublished books evolved into Mistborn.)And this was when I decided to begin the most ambitious story I d ever ve talked a lot about that time in my life; you might have heard the story before. I started The Way of KINGS because I needed something for me. Something to prove to myself that I still loved writing. After spending several years chasing the market by trying to write like popular writers who were selling at the time, I asked myself, What would I most want to read? What would I be writing if I didn t care what the publishing industry thought?

4 The book you are now reading is the result. I was told my books were too viii PREFACE long; this is even longer than any book I d heretofore created. Publishers told me to focus less on magic and more on creating gritty Earth-like set-tings, like what was selling at the time. I went off in a completely different direction, into a land of knights in magical power armor, ancient magics, and an ecology that was far, far removed from anything you d find on an extent this was me giving up, but in the most glorious way possible. I had realized, during those dark moments, that I loved writing so much that I wasn t going to give up, even if I was never published. The Way of KINGS was for me. It was my exploration of my own goals for the fantasy genre my feelings of where it could go, what it could do and what I d like to see fantasy ve talked about something my friends jokingly called worldbuilder s disease.

5 That s the affliction a writer can get where they spend all their time worldbuilding, and never actually tell their story. For The Way of KINGS , I decided to GIVE myself worldbuilder s disease. I let myself just think and plan about the world for months and months before writing far more than I normally the time, I was working the graveyard shift at a hotel and would write during downtime. I bought a three-ring binder, and I started printing off pages of Roshar s worldbuilding each day after I finished. I filled that thing up with some three or four hundred thousand words of ideas for the setting more words than the book itself eventually had. In part, this was to give myself time to deal with all the rejections I d been eventually got better. I finally got accepted to a graduate school. (BYU let me in; I hadn t wanted to apply there initially because that s where I d done my undergraduate studies.)

6 However, out of twelve applications the first year and another eight the next year, it s the only school that accepted me.) I started to see some small successes in publishing. And right around the time I finished The Way of KINGS Prime, I finally sold a Way of KINGS saw me through it all. It shepherded me through my transition from an amateur to a professional writer and the text, as you ll soon find out, shows that. This book is a failure, but a spectacular d never attempted something on this scope before, and so I tried to write too many different viewpoints, with too many different plotlines for me to juggle. The end result, as you ll read, is a book that lacks focus it s trying to do too much. What it envisions is awesome, but because of my limited skill at the time, I ended up with a large number of fragments of different stories told together in one book rather than something that tells a single narrative.

7 THE WAY OF KINGS PRIME ixEverything is going to feel just a little off to you in this novel. Indeed, themes like mental health, which I later learned better ways of addressing, are .. handled less delicately in this book. Also, in reading history, I found that many arranged marriages happened between people of extremely disparate ages, and I wanted to explore that kind of strange relationship. (I did it in a way that didn t involve anything uncomfortable happening but it still came off poorly in the book. Fair warning.)Almost all the characters are here, though most of them have different names. (Jasnah and Dalinar are the only names I remember keeping. And I don t believe Navani exists yet.) Kaladin, called Merin in this, has a completely different arc as I hadn t put Bridge Four into the book yet, and hadn t yet figured out how to make spren part of the world as I wanted. Taln, the Herald, is a main character I envisioned him as the main character of the series back then, though his arc was supposed to be un-certain, as I didn t want you to know if he s actually what he claims, or if he s events of this book are far, far different from the published version.

8 So please don t assume anything in here is still canon, or an indication of the future for the real Stormlight Archive even the name of the series was different; I was calling it the Dawnshards. All that said, I m very proud of this novel. It s the book I wrote right before Mistborn, and is of a similar quality just less taught me a great deal, however, and I still think it s worth reading so long as you understand that the book is an embryonic version of the story I truly dreamed of telling. I would eventually gain the skill and confidence, after years of thinking about what went wrong, to write the book a better way. If for some reason you haven t read the published version, please read that one all its flaws, it s exactly what I needed when I wrote it. And it is the seed that eventually grew into something great. I hope you find something in it to SandersonApril 2020 ACKNOWLEDGMENTSEven though The Way of KINGS Prime was never published in the tradi-tional way, it still had a large group of people friends, family, members of writing groups who read it and gave feedback.

9 Even by the time Elantris was published, the binders with the printed pages of the book you now hold in your hands were still being shared around. (In fact, one of those binders full of comment-filled pages was literally used as a doorstop when helping a friend move apartments.) So, thank you to everyone who read, commented upon, and enjoyed this book throughout the this Sanderson Curiosities edition, big thanks go to Peter Ahlstrom and Is c Stewart for shepherding it from manuscript to print. Kristina Kugler provided exceptional proofreading and copyediting, for which we are very grateful. We especially want to thank Kristy S. Gilbert at Looseleaf Editorial & Production for the book s layout and design. Her talents and hard work can be seen on every page. Additionally, Isaac Stewart would like to thank Brandon Sanderson for creating the map and symbols that appear on the next few is a map of Roshar Proper, as it was divided during the days of theEpoch Kingdoms.

10 Note that"Shinavar" on this map is called "Silnasen," "Vedenar"is called "Jah Keved," andis called "Jah Keved," and"Pralir" is called "Prallah."NanahVeden CityKhardinarTeth-KanarNahel-Elir'sBaySh entil'sCrookFar ChannelDrywaterChannel Nomkhor(The Son)Lahkhor(The Daughter)Sea of ChomarFlinwellChannelDAVARLAITK enedalRal EramStreatched BayHIGH WATCHINGSSVADENLAITR ashkah WardenDISTANTPRALLRIENARLAITThe Drunken MountainsKholinarJorevanthe ten epoch kingdomsThis is a map of Roshar Proper, as it was divided during the days of theEpoch Kingdoms. Note that"Shinavar" on this map is called "Silnasen," "Vedenar"is called "Jah Keved," andis called "Jah Keved," and"Pralir" is called "Prallah."NanahVeden CityKhardinarTeth-KanarNahel-Elir'sBaySh entil'sCrookFar ChannelDrywaterChannel Nomkhor(The Son)Lahkhor(The Daughter)Sea of ChomarFlinwellChannelDAVARLAITK enedalRal EramStreatched BayHIGH WATCHINGSSVADENLAITR ashkah WardenDISTANTPRALLRIENARLAITThe Drunken MountainsKholinarJorevanthe ten epoch kingdomsTALN(Stone)SHIN(Water)KHOF(Fire) KAV(Wood)NOLH(Air)VED(Metal)BALEV(Oil)HR AN(Crystal)PRAM(Smoke)DAL(Flesh)RAL (Adherence)ISH (Awakening)RIEM (Stasis)KHOR (Time)JEZ (Wind) ROSH(Movement)NAH (Energy)SHAN (Decay)EKEZ (Life)ZEREM (Thought)THE DOUBLE EYEThis is a representation of the Double Eye as it appears in Rosharan art.