Knights of Wind and Truth

Knights of Wind and Truth is a book written by the Shin scholar Masha-daughter-Shaliv. Completed six years after the Night of Sorrows, it is an account of the cleansing of Shinovar by Kaladin and Szeth, the eponymous Knight of Wind and Knight of Truth respectively.
Masha's main sources for the book are Szeth and the sword Nightblood, though she also received information about Kaladin from Jasnah Kholin. Additionally, Masha briefly spoke with the Wind before she vanished. Szeth and Nightblood were not conscious by the time Retribution was created and the Wind did not explain any of what happened after that point to Masha, so the book does not include the refounding of the Oathpact with Kaladin as a Herald. Instead, based on the body Kaladin left behind when he became a Herald, Masha concludes that Kaladin is dead. She is also only able to speculate about how the Wind and the spren were protected from Retribution, suggesting that the Oathpact with only nine Heralds may have been enough or that Kaladin, as champion of the Wind, may have been able to do something on his own before dying.
The book is part of a larger work that spans multiple volumes and includes contributions from other authors. One of the other volumes, which was not written by Masha, focuses on the events surrounding the contest of champions at Urithiru, though that volume had not yet been written by the time Masha finished Knights of Wind and Truth.
== Excerpts ==
Text 	Page
"I should have known I was being watched. All my life, the signs were there." 	1
"I first knew the Wind as a child, during days before I knew dreams. What need has a child of dreams or aspirations? They live, and love, the life that is." 	3
"The Wind told me, before she vanished, that it was the change in Odium’s vessel that restored her voice. I wonder. Perhaps it is the new storm, making people begin to reconsider that the wind is not their enemy." 	3
"I have read that in the ancient days, the Wind often spoke to both human and singer. It would then mean that the Wind stopped talking not because of Odium, but because of people who began to fear her ...Or to worship the Storm instead." 	4
"As a historian, I find such nuances relevant. As a philosopher, I find them enticing." 	4
"Regardless, the events surrounding the cleansing of Shinovar are of specific relevance, and I am doing my best to record what I can discover of the Wind’s own words regarding them. Though, now that the Wind and Heralds have vanished, I have only two sources who can speak of these events.They are my witnesses." 	5
"However, the Wind did not think like a person does. This should not surprise anyone who has familiarity with a spren, though such things are less common now than they once were." 	5
"Her memory was keen, but her interpretation and explanation of that memory could be fanciful. Those days, though, I believe that she was deliberate, concerned, and focused.She did not see the future.But she somehow knew it anyway." 	5
"All agree the first key moment came when Kaladin Stormblessed listened. Though not an Edgedancer, he did a fine impression of their oaths." 	8
"The second moment had happened already, when Szeth himself decided to take upon him this quest. The one that would shape all of our futures." 	8
"For while the contest of champions was to happen in the East, a different contest was to happen in Shinovar. And one that the Wind swore was equally vital. Perhaps more so." 	8
"I was not with them. I did not know of their quest." 	10
"Yet I will do my best to recount their story, and that of the Wind. For they were her champions." 	11
"The Wind was not there for the contest of champions, the final confrontation between Odium and the mortals who would oppose him. She felt ostracized from that world, where it was Storms—and not Wind—who drew attention." 	18
"Much of what I know of the Knight of Wind, I get from Jasnah Kholin. Now head of our order, and a woman who has shown much patience for a simple Shin bookworm who thinks herself worthy of the task of writing this account." 	22
"Curiously, the closest I came to the Knight of Wind and the Knight of Truth during their quest happened during the last hours before Stormfall. When they visited my parents' house, while I was asleep, and purchased their wagon." 	27
"I find stories of the Knight of Wind to be most intriguing. They call him Stormblessed, but best I can tell, the storm alternately tried to kill him and proclaim him its son. I wonder what it knew that we do not." 	34
"I know that to this day, people are confused by how at the end, spren began arriving in the East without the need for bonds. Notum, now among the most famous of honorspren, is an example. The answer is simple, however.As the lands began to think of them, and remember them, they needed less the bond of a single person to give them purchase in the Physical Realm. For the thoughts of an entire people bolstered them."	46
"I will leave one to ponder upon the incredible irony of the Herald of Bonds deciding he needed to teach Szeth, of all people, how to be humble. As if years of slavery weren't a capable instructor." 	83
"I often reflect upon how the world changed that day. And how I spent it, completely unaware, working in the family orchard. Picking fruit while the End of All Things itself came upon us." 	92
"I record here the notes of the song. The Wind knows it very well. I cannot hear her voice, but sometimes I hear the flute." 	117
"Those who were not there, you future readers, understand. Even hundreds of miles away from the event, I heard the thunder.The land trembled at what Dalinar Kholin did." 	181
"To this day, I wish I had all the answers. Would that someday, a historian could make a record with all possible information at her fingertips. For example, what was it Ishu did to prepare himself for what he knew the Knights would attempt? It still baffles explanation, as do many Bondsmith arts." 	201
"I can say this. I believe the fact that Ishu was bearing some of the pain of each and every Herald is an extremely relevant point in this analysis. For while he gave the darkness, he indeed held it in part.I keep returning to this idea. As I feel it should be explored further." 	201
"There were not two heroes that day, but many" 	237
"And the existence of those several key people is the one thing that I myself have heard from the Wind. This singular truth, a nugget that I cannot yet explain.'One is not enough. The change must come from many.'" 	237
"I can't speak to that. But I can speak to the testimony of one man's experience. That of what it felt like to be in the very depths of despair, and then to have someone stand up and try their best to shield you from it." 	237
"For the events surrounding the contest at Urithiru, I must refer you to another volume of this multi-author work. One that has, unfortunately, not yet been written." 	238
"The Wind itself accepted his Words." 	249
"The curious effect that the Black Sword has on individuals is one that I find poorly recorded. It is true that many feel nausea when picking it up, which is a sign of a heart uncorrupted by greed.Others are, then, corrupted by that greed.Most interesting are those in between. Those who feel neither emotion. Those who can use the sword, but walk a fine line upon its edge." 	266
"And now we reach the part of the narrative where I can but speculate, as my witnesses were both unconscious." 	271
"On that day, the Knight of Truth did not save us from the evil that had been prophesied. But from the evil brought by the prophesier." 	281
"I can only guess what happened, therefore, to the Knight of Wind. That he is dead is demonstrable. That he succeeded, at least in part, is also demonstrable." 	289
"But it was not a complete success, as I have not heard the Wind—neither has Szeth—in years. Save that one whisper.Regardless, she lives, so perhaps the Oathpact, as it was, held well enough? Even without Szeth to fill the hole?Or perhaps, as champion of the Wind, Kaladin was able to do something in the end right before he died, which turned Retribution's ire from the spren." 	290
"This account will not be without flaws. But it is the best I have been able to create from available information—and from the witness of my husband, Szeth, and the witness of the black sword he bears. For I myself helped him bury the Knight of Wind's body, the day after Stormfall.The day that everything changed." 	292
== Trivia ==
* Knights of Wind and Truth was a working title for Wind and Truth, which would have made the initialisms of the first five books of The Stormlight Archive symmetrical (TWoK WoR O RoW KoWT). As a result of the title of the real-world book being shortened, Knights of Wind and Truth is the only book whose title does not exactly match its corresponding real-world book.
== Notes ==