Page 1 of The Sunlit Man

Whew! What a year!This was quite the wild ride, involving atonof work from everyone involved. I’ll make sure to get to them all in this section, but I just wanted to say a big thank-you to everyone. It was a herculean effort to get these books edited, illustrated, and delivered.

Our editor on this book was Moshe Feder, my longtime partner in crime and the man who discovered me. We were thrilled to work with him again, and I’m glad he was here to help me with this next step of Nomad’s journey. A special thank-you goes to Dr. Joseph Jensen for his help with the astrophysics, as this one is a bit of a doozy as far as that is concerned. Also, the Cosmere Arcanist team—you guys are great.

I’m represented by the remarkable team at the JABberwocky Literary Agency, with Joshua Bilmes at the helm. Thanks also to Susan Velazquez and Christina Zobel.

This book is odd compared to the other secret projects, as we have three illustrators, not one. We wanted to try out some newpeople and found some individuals who worked well for this specific novel. Thank you to all of them for their amazing work. These projects became extra special because of their involvement. Ernanda Souza did the endpapers, full-color illustrations, and concept art. She really did a great job and was awesome to work with. Nabetse Zitro did our interior drawings, joining us again after the incredible work he did on the new comic pages in theWhite Sandgraphic novel omnibus. And kudriaken did our spectacular cover illustration.

Bill Wearne, our print rep at American Print and Bindery, made magic happen with each of the secret projects. We appreciate him, the printer, the bindery, and all those who helped with the manu­facturing of this book. Debi Bergerson was instrumental on the print side, and Chad Dillon went above and beyond to ensure high-quality binding materials.

From here, let’s go to the departments at Dragonsteel. I have the best team in the business, and they all put a lot of work into these secret projects.

Isaac StÙart is our vice president of Creative Development. His team includes Ben McSweeney (who did great concept work to keep the vision of the project cohesive), Rachael Lynn Buchanan (who did a lot of heavy lifting helping Isaac work with the artists, choosing scenes to illustrate, and keeping track of details), Jennifer Neal, Hayley Lazo, Priscilla Spencer, and Anna Earley.

The Instructional Peter Ahlstrom is our vice president of Editorial. His team includes Karen Ahlstrom, Kristy S. Gilbert, Jennie Stevens (our in-house editor of this book), Betsey Ahlstrom, and Emily Shaw-Higham. Kristy Kugler did the copyedit.

The Narrative department is just Dan Wells, who is also its VP. But we let him boss Ben around to make up for it.

Our COO is Emily Sanderson, and the Operations team includes Matt “Matt” Hatch, Emma Tan-Stoker, Jane Horne, Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson, Makena Saluone, Hazel Cummings, and Becky Wilson.

Adam Horne, a.k.a. the Grand Master of Corgis, is our vice president of Publicity and Marketing. His team includes Jeremy Palmer, Taylor D. Hatch, and Octavia Escamilla.

Kara Stewart is our vice president of Merchandising, Events, and making sure you all get your boxes of stuff. Her team includes Emma Tan-Stoker, Christi Jacobsen, Kellyn Neumann, Lex Willhite, Mem Grange, Michael Bateman, Joy Allen, Ally Reep, Richard Rubert, Katy Ives, Brett Moore, Dallin Holden, Daniel Phipps, Jacob Chrisman, Alex Lyon, Matt Hampton, Camilla Cutler, Quinton Martin, Esther Grange, Logan Reep, Laura Loveridge, Amanda Butterfield, Gwen Hickman, Donald Mustard III, Zoe Hatch, Pablo Mooney, Braydonn Moore, Avery Morgan, Nathan Mortensen, Christian Fairbanks, Dal Hill, George Kaler, Kathleen Barlow, Kaleigh Arnold, Kitty Allen, Rachel Jacobsen, Sydney Wilson, Katelyn Hatch, and Judy Torsak.

I’d like to thank Oriana Leckert from Kickstarter, and Anna Gallagher, Palmer Johnson, and McKynzee Wiggins (chief button maker) from BackerKit.

My writing group consists of Emily Sanderson, Kathleen Dorsey Sanderson, Peter Ahlstrom, Karen Ahlstrom, Darci Stone, Eric James Stone, Alan Layton, Ethan Skarstedt, Ben Olsen, and Dan Wells.

Alpha readers for this book include Karen Ahlstrom, Joy Allen, Christi Jacobsen, Brett Moore, Brad Neumann, Kellyn Neumann, Ally Reep, Emma Tan-Stoker, Sean VanBlack, and Dan Wells.

Our beta readers are Ravi Persaud, Ian McNatt, Brandon Cole, Shannon Nelson, Ben Marrow, Jennifer Neal, Poonam Desai, Chris McGrath, Sumejja Muratagic-Tadic, Kendra Alexander, Zenef Mark Lindberg, Paige Phillips, Rosemary Williams, Eric Lake, David Behrens, William Juan, and Erika Kuta Marler. Special thanks to Mikah Kilgore for xyr beta feedback on the image descriptions found in the ebook and audiobook.

Our gamma readers include many beta readers, along with Evgeni “Argent” Kirilov, Joshua Harkey, Ross Newberry, Tim Challener, Jessica Ashcraft, Ted Herman, Brian T. Hill, Rob West, Paige Vest, Gary Singer, Darci Cole, Kalyani Poluri, Jayden King, Lingting “Botanica” Xu, Glen Vogelaar, Bob Kluttz, Billy Todd, Megan Kanne, Eliyahu Berelowitz Levin, Aaron Ford, Jessie Lake, and Sam Baskin.

The Arcanist team includes Eric Lake, Evgeni “Argent” Kirilov, Ben Marrow, David Behrens, Ian McNatt, and Joshua Harkey.

As this is the last book of the Secret Projects Kickstarter, I wanted to take one final opportunity to thank you all. I might have written the books, but you created theeventthat they became. You made this year so very special. After you’ve read the book, see the postscript for more.

Brandon Sanderson

Nomad woke upamong the condemned.

He blinked, his right cheek in the dirt. Then he focused on the incongruous sight of a plant growing in fast-motion before his eyes. Was he dreaming? The fragile sprout quivered and twisted, heaving up from the earth. It seemed to stretch with joy, its seedpods parting like arms after a deep sleep. A stalk emerged from the center, testing the air like a serpent’s tongue. Then it stretched left toward the dim light shining from that direction.

Nomad groaned and lifted his head, mind fuzzy, muscles sore. Where had he Skipped to this time? And would it be far enough away to hide from the Night Brigade?

Of course it wouldn’t be. No place could hide him from them. He had to keep moving. Had to…

Storms. It felt good to lie here. Couldn’t he just rest for a while? Stop running for once?

Rough hands grabbed him from behind and hauled him to his knees, jolting him from his stupor. He became more aware of his surroundings: the shouting, the groaning. Sounds he’d been oblivious to in his post-Skip grogginess.

The people here, including the man who grabbed him, wore unfamiliar clothing. Long trousers, sleeves with tight cuffs, shirts with high collars all the way up to the chin. The man shook him, barking at Nomad in a language he didn’t understand.

“Trans…translation?” Nomad croaked.

Sorry,a deep, monotone voice said in his head.We don’t have enough Investiture for that.

Right. He’d barely reached the threshold for his last Skip, which would leave him nearly drained. His abilities relied on reaching or maintaining certain thresholds of Investiture, the mystical power source that fueled extraordinary events on most planets he visited.

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