Prologue: To Kill

This prologue chapter follows the assassin, a young man from a distant land called a "truthless" who serves foreign masters. He is sent into a treaty celebration, kills guards and servants, pursues King of the land inside the Palace, fights the king in intense armed combat, and ultimately causes his death, discovering an odd dark-glowing sphere the king begs him to take before dying.

A devout and supposedly truthless man named the truthless, dressed in white as commanded by his masters, works through the king of the land's palace. He infiltrates a celebration which is actually held after a treaty is signed between the king's kingdom and the so-called "parshendi", or intelligent parshmen, who are the masters the truthless serves. The truthless uses ancient magic known as "stormlight" which he draws from glowing sapphire lamps to enhance his body and use three types of magical "lashings" that let him change which direction is "down" for himself or objects. He also possesses a "shardblade", an ancient weapon that kills by severing the soul itself, not flesh. He cuts through guards and servants in the palace, eventually confronting King gavilar kholin himself, who wears shardplate, ancient magical armor. They fight through the king's chambers with the truthless using his lashings against the king's superior armor. The truthless eventually destroys the balcony beneath the king, causing a fatal fall. Before dying, the king gives the truthless a strange dark-glowing sphere and asks him to tell his brother to find "the most important words a man can say", but the truthless reveals he doesn't know who ordered the king's death, only that his masters are the parshendi. The truthless escapes into the night, confused that the parshendi would order this assassination after signing a treaty only hours before.