Chapter 17

What I learned from their glyphs scribbled in dust trembled my soul: it was because of me, and the stories they’d heard of my teachings, that they had left.

—From The Way of Kings , fourth parable

T he first signs of light shone through the atrium as Adolin walked to the lifts. After his time with Shallan, he’d made a detour to check on Gallant, and would arrive at the meeting right on schedule.

Many common people were being forced to wait in line for lifts until the monarchs had gathered. He spotted someone unexpected among them.

“Colot?” he asked, noting the Cobalt Guardsman.

“Adolin,” Colot said, looking embarrassed. He was lighteyed, with yellow-green eyes. Former Windrunner squire. Many squires had to wait months to get spren, which were in short supply—but most were happy to do so. He didn’t know why Colot had given up and left before getting one.

“You all right?” Adolin asked him.

“Fine. Your father just managed to give me the slip again.”

Adolin groaned softly. “I thought he was getting better at bringing his guards.”

“I don’t think he did it intentionally. He simply got distracted.” Colot gave a shrug.

“I’ll talk to him,” Adolin said.

“Please don’t, Adolin. Bodyguards are nothing more than a bother for him these days. Just …” Colot took a deep breath. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll find my way up once the important people are taken care of.”

“Nah, you’re coming with me,” Adolin said, pulling him out of the line. Adolin spotted a lift being loaded with a group of figures in colorful Azish clothing, soldiers keeping everyone else at a safe distance. Adolin gave a shout and ran for the lift, towing Colot behind him. Before the attendants could close the gate, the emperor himself—swathed in thick robes and wearing a headdress several feet wide—raised his hand, pausing them.

Adolin and Colot hopped onto the lift, and Adolin nodded to the emperor in thanks. It was crowded full of Azish dignitaries. Wherever Emperor Yanagawn went, he had to bring viziers, servants, functionaries, servants to the functionaries …

The lift started creeping up the wall of the atrium. Then it picked up speed. Within seconds, they were going so fast that Adolin felt the wind of it—something that had never happened before the tower’s awakening. At this rate, the ride to the top would take barely a few minutes.

“Highprince Adolin,” Yanagawn said from the center of his retinue. “Might I have a word?”

Nearby, several of the viziers glanced at one another, though none said anything. The young emperor wasn’t technically supposed to speak to anyone beneath him, but he and Adolin had interacted on and off during the year since the Battle of Thaylen Field. Yanagawn had started talking to Adolin directly.

“Your Excellency?” Adolin said, stepping closer as several guards reluctantly made space for him.

“You saw the armies advancing on my homeland,” Yanagawn said. “The report is that they are … vast?”

“It’s a pretty decent invasion force,” Adolin admitted. “Maybe fifteen or twenty thousand.”

“We have a fraction of that in the capital,” Yanagawn said. “Most of our armies are out on campaign.” He shook his head, seated in his chair amid them all. They carried a seat for him wherever he went—and sometimes they carried him upon it. “We thought we’d be safe after driving the enemy back in Emul. Even with the contest, will it ever end?”

“I wish I knew, Your Excellency.”

Yanagawn was in many ways baffling to Adolin—a figurehead more than a king. Like a Soulcast statue, powerful in station, but somehow personally impotent. Jasnah thought this was a good thing; Adolin had tried to follow her explanations why. It made sense when she talked about checks on absolute power, but Jasnah could make anything sound reasonable. It was one of her gifts.

“You fight directly for your people,” Yanagawn said softly to him. “With sword in hand. Are you ever frightened you won’t be strong enough, Highprince?”

“You can call me Adolin, if you’d like.”

“I … cannot offer you the same courtesy.”

“I understand,” Adolin said. “And in answer to your question: yes. I get storming terrified that I’ll fail again. Kholinar fell when I was sent to save it. Not a day passes that I haven’t thought about that.”

It was a constant pain—like a stretched muscle that refused to heal. The type of stealth pain that didn’t ache until you moved the wrong way, and suddenly it flared up—a sharp spike in your side. He would remember activating the Oathgate. Leaving wounded soldiers behind, an entire city full of people that he was supposed to have rescued. His cousin Elhokar dead on the stones …

Yeah, that one storming hurt.

“How do you bear it?” Yanagawn asked.

“Exercise helps,” Adolin said. “Training with my sword, clearing my mind.”

“Sometimes I think it is a blessing that my station doesn’t let me fight,” Yanagawn said. Storms, his Alethi was so good. He had an accent, yes, but he’d only been practicing for a year or so. “I do not make the tactical decisions, and so the burden of failure is not my own. At other times, I find myself a coward.”

“It’s not cowardly to know your own limitations, Excellency,” Adolin said.

“Maybe,” Yanagawn said, then smiled fondly. “Do you know my background, Adolin?”

“I believe you were a darkeyes … er, whatever you call it … before your elevation.”

“A commoner, yes,” he said. “A thief. And not a very good one at that.”

More side glances from the viziers. Noura, their foremost, stepped closer. “Pardon, Excellency and Highness, but that is the path Yaezir put you upon, and is how you were to be manifest to us via miracle.”

“That doesn’t change what I was, Noura.”

“Yes, Excellency,” she said. “But dwelling on what you were, instead of what you are, never gets a person far.”

Adolin nodded. He could never have lived with so many attendants, but Noura … she was at least thoughtful.

“I mention it,” Yanagawn said, “not to dwell upon it, but to remember a time when I was commonly put into dangerous situations. I did not handle it well then. I often wonder … how would I handle it now?” He looked to Noura, and Adolin saw in him the man—not the youth. He was older than Adolin had been when he’d first won his Shardblade.

This fellow, Adolin thought, needs a good session training with the sword.

It wasn’t Adolin’s place to say so, not here. So he held his tongue as the lift reached the top, and they stepped out. It was time to decide how they were going to face this threat.

Radiant leaned back against the wall of the lift atrium’s ground floor. Courtesy of Shallan’s Lightweaving, she wore the face of a crem scraper. He was a man with long features, drooping as if waxen.

Adolin got on the lift with the Azish contingent, while Isom—the Lightweaver she’d tasked with tailing him—gave a covert signal, indicating he’d take the next lift up. Shallan had been worried when Isom reported Adolin hadn’t gone straight to the meeting. Of course he’d gone to check on his horse. Again.

She’d already sent Stargyle up to join the monarchs, officially representing the Unseen Court, so Adolin should be well guarded. Besides, surely the enemy wouldn’t try something in the middle of a meeting of kings, queens, and a bunch of Radiants.

You’ve done what you can there, Veil said.

Now her plans depended on one of her Lightweavers being able to tail a Ghostblood to their current hideout. Gaz was with her, wearing the face of a young woman who sold rockbud flowers in the market. One of his better sketches—and better disguises, as it made use of his shorter height.

“No reports of Ghostbloods tailing any of our people today,” Gaz said softly. His Lightweaving had progressed far enough that his voice was starting to modulate as well as his image. “They haven’t even attacked the horse. You think they’re waiting to make us placid?”

Radiant considered. “No. They don’t want to draw attention. A petty strike at someone Shallan loves would give them a moment of satisfaction, but would bring the full weight of Dalinar’s anger down on them. Mraize is more subtle than that.”

Gaz grunted, a sound that did not match the face he was wearing. He needed more practice. To that end, now that she had checked on Adolin, Radiant gave way to Shallan, who slouched further, shoved her hands in her pockets, and started chewing on her lip—all very un-Shallan-like behaviors—to help sell the disguise.

“No threats,” Shallan whispered with a man’s voice. “No contact. I’d hoped we could stop a strike against one of us, then tail the perpetrators. This silence is unnerving. We need to find out what they’re up to, Gaz.”

“We have agents watching tower entrances and major corridors,” Gaz said. “But even with our paid informants, I can’t guarantee we’ll pick up a Ghostblood’s trail.”

Shallan nodded as she chewed her lip, thoughtful. “Ghostbloods won’t be able to stay away from today’s developments. They didn’t interfere with Adolin, but they’re watching. They’ll be doing the same for Dalinar, Navani, and anyone else they think might know something. Eventually one of us will spot someone to follow.”

Gaz nodded slowly, relaxing against the wall with a leisurely air. Shob, one of the other Lightweavers, would be here in a few minutes with his report. In the past, Gaz had scratched at his stubble and spent half his time nervously checking his former blind spot. Both actions were far less common while he was in disguise, as he’d tempered the behaviors.

“You’re getting better at this,” Shallan noted.

“Thanks,” he said. “I needed something to do with my time.”

“How’s the gambling?”

He shrugged.

“How much in debt are you this week?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“That’s an improvement.”

“Only because I managed to stay away completely,” he said. “That advice you gave about giving myself a budget and only losing that much?”

“Yes?” she said, eager.

“It was storming useless,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Oh.”

“If I start gambling, I stop caring,” he said. “That’s always been the problem. It’s why I wound up in the bridge crews, under the thumb of a pair of petty lighteyes. It’s why I ended up deserting. No budget will work for me. Just gotta do somethin’ else.”

“Is that difficult?” she asked, thinking of her brother who had the same problem. Maybe what worked for Gaz would help Jushu.

“Yeah. I used to spend all my days planning how to score,” he said. “Strategies—most of them useless. I’d build up in my mind how each play would be one gust in what became a storm of winnings, digging me out of my problems. Each win felt good, like I was taking a step toward being worth something.”

Disgustspren, like orange corkscrews drilling downward, appeared around him as he continued. “It’s not the gambling itself that got me. It’s that I built up how it would feel to win, only to come crashing down each time, leaving me feeling like I’d missed out on something I was owed. That made me dull to everything else. Till I was a man without a heart, sending boys off to die each day on those bridge runs.”

“And then …”

“I found you all,” he said. “People who care about me.”

“And the power of being loved,” Shallan said softly, a smile rising on her lips, “gave you the strength to resist.”

“What?” He belted out a laugh, half his voice, half that of his illusion. “What kind of storming crem is that! The power of being loved? Ha! No, Stargyle and Red went to every gambling den in the whole storming tower and threatened the folks that run them! Said if anyone let me in, Stargyle would rip their toenails off and wear them as a necklace. When I came by, the staff wouldn’t even talk to me!”

“Well,” she said, “that is the power of being loved. Simply, um, a different hue.”

“A tough kind of love.”

“A toe-uf kind of love.”

He looked at her.

“Toe,” she said. “For feet. Toenails.”

He just kept staring at her.

“Hey, I’m out of practice,” she said. “There was this whole thing with another personality almost manifesting, and it didn’t leave time for witticisms. Anyway, remind me to send Red and Stargyle a thank-you note.”

“Storming fools,” Gaz grumbled. “But it worked. After a while, my mind found other ways to spend its time. The work we do, that’s got more of a real thrill to it: the plans, the watching, the tailing. Now the strategies I think of are actually accomplishing something.” He checked his belt, where one of their spanreeds was blinking. “Damnation. That’s Shob. He’s spotted a Ghostblood. You were right.”

“I always am.” She paused. “Except with gambling advice.”

“And jokes.”

“My jokes are incredible. They might need to be honed a little, but well, even a dull knife can kill someone.”

He ran his hand through his fake hair. “That explains so much …”

“It does?”

“If you push hard enough with a dull knife …”

“It can still be painful.”

“And if you keep trying with bad jokes …”

“The same.” She hesitated. “Wait. That’s not what I meant.”

He grinned. “Let’s go see what Shob found.”