Dylan

“I need you, Teft,” Kaladin said.
“I said—”
“Not your food. You. Your loyalty. Your allegiance.”
The older man continued to eat. He didn’t have a slave brand, and neither did Rock. Kaladin didn’t
know their stories. All he knew was that these two had helped when others hadn’t. They weren’t
completely beaten down.
“Teft—” Kaladin began.
“I’ve given my loyalty before,” the man said. “Too many times now. Always works out the same.”
“Your trust gets betrayed?” Kaladin asked softly.
Teft snorted. “Storms, no. I betray it. You can’t depend on me, son. I belong here, as a
bridgeman.”
“I depended on you yesterday, and you impressed me.”
“Fluke.”
“I’ll judge that,” Kaladin said. “Teft, we’re all broken, in one way or another. Otherwise we
wouldn’t be bridgemen. I’ve failed. My own brother died because of me.”
“So why keep caring?”
“It’s either that or give up and die.”
“And if death is better?”
It came back to this problem. This was why the bridgemen didn’t care if he helped the wounded or
not.
“Death isn’t better,” Kaladin said, looking Teft in the eyes. “Oh, it’s easy to say that now. But when
you stand on the ledge and look down into that dark, endless pit, you change your mind. Just like
Hobber did. Just like I’ve done.” He hesitated, seeing something in the older man’s eyes. “I think you’ve
seen it too.”
“Aye,” Teft said softly. “Aye, I have.”
“So, are you with us in this thing?” Rock said, squatting down.
Us? Kaladin thought, smiling faintly.
Teft looked back and forth between the two of them. “I get to keep my food?”
“Yes,” Kaladin said.
Teft shrugged. “All right then, I guess. Can’t be any harder than sitting here and having a staring
contest with mortality.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Everything is a contest. All dealings among men are a contest in which some will succeed and others fail. And some are failing quite spectacularly.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“We follow the codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief in right and wrong."
"But the Almighty determines what is right!"
"Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality -- which answers only to my heart -- is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings