Chapter 54

Indeed, some insist that among Radiants, some Skybreakers did step forth into the Recreance, and their actions are covered; to this end, I have engaged the commentary of Didal; it strikes as mendacious that any Skybreaker would turn upon their oaths, and I find their malignment to be uniformly abhorrent. A schism arose among them, as all evidence presents, but not of this nature. The Skybreakers, who have always quietly cared for those the law forgets, do still exist, as previously accounted; they merely exist in multiple forms.

—From Words of Radiance, chapter 40, page 3

S hallan sat and watched a school of skyeels dancing in the sky. Playfully nipping at one another, swirling and streaming. Though she was too distant to see the subtle details of the three-color split, it was manifest all around her. These worlds, created by Renarin’s and Rlain’s spren, made her feel as if she were living in a woodblock print.

This time they were at one of the warcamps. Nearby, Rlain and Renarin sat with their feet hanging over the side of a chasm. She’d never known Renarin to be overtly cheerful, but he laughed at something Rlain said. The spren didn’t think Dalinar and Navani had found their way to another vision yet, which gave her time to think about what had happened in the last one. Her clash with Mraize had nearly revealed her to the gods.

Perhaps they could plan better for the next time. And perhaps she could figure out what was happening to her mind.

“How did Formless come back, Pattern?” Shallan asked. She sat at the edge of the camp, near the crumbled wall. Pattern sat to her right on a broken section of the wall, hands crossed primly in his lap.

“I do not know,” he said. Testament sat a little farther up on the same broken wall, regarding the skyeels. “I do not think humans make sense when they are sane! Let alone when they are not. Ha ha.”

She tipped her head back and felt the breeze, making pictures in her mind from the clouds. This idyllic version of the Shattered Plains had been constructed from Rlain’s memory. It depicted a time before humans arrived, though no one else—singer or human—appeared in the vision. Their touch was represented in the cloths hanging from windows, the crops growing in the distance, the spears and bows leaning against one wall. It was like visiting a home when the occupants had stepped out, soon to return.

“I banished Formless,” Shallan said. “I grew past that. I don’t need her.”

“Agreed,” Pattern said.

“Is this what it will be like?” Shallan asked. “For the rest of my life? Knowing that my mind could—at any moment—backslide? Knowing that is always lurking around the corner?”

“I’m sorry, Shallan.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “It was almost better, Pattern, when I didn’t know. Then, it wasn’t my fault when I failed. Or at least I could pretend it wasn’t.”

“Shallan,” Pattern whispered, “what did Wit say?”

“I know …”

“Repeat it.”

“I don’t deserve it,” she whispered. “What was done to me is not my fault. It’s all right to accept that I have pain, but I shouldn’t accept that I deserve it.”

“I’m sorry that you have to live with it anyway.”

“I do. It’s awful, and it’s unfair, but I do.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to let Formless manifest as a full aspect of my personality. Veil and Radiant are coping mechanisms, and they helped me survive. But Formless … she’s me. Not an alternate persona, but a representation of me giving up. That is me if I just … become what Mraize wants.”

“You won’t give in to that, Shallan.”

“No. I won’t. ”

“Then there is nothing to fear. Perhaps she only manifests here as a reminder. Maybe?”

She looked to him, to find his head pattern spinning and transforming, mesmerizing, faster than normal. He was worried for her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Oh!” he said, perking up. “I said the right things?”

“It’s more that you were here,” she said, smiling.

“I am very good at this,” Pattern said. “Mmmm. That might be a lie, but I don’t care!”

Shallan gazed up at the sky, past the eels, at the clouds. “I wonder how Adolin is doing. Is he all right, do you think? He had to go to war without me.”

“He is very strong,” Pattern said. “The best swordsman I know! Or really that anyone knows!”

That was true, but being the best didn’t always protect you. Sometimes it made you a target. She continued staring at the clouds, imagining them as …

The face of Ba-Ado-Mishram. Glaring down at her malevolently. Shallan’s breath caught, and she glanced at Testament, who had been staring in that direction all this time. She wasn’t watching the skyeels, but that face in the clouds.

Renarin suddenly cried out and stumbled to his feet. So, he’d noticed as well. Together the two men hurried back to her, their spren joining them from the shadows nearby, where they liked to linger—though they would as often inhabit their hosts’ bodies somehow.

“Face,” Renarin said, pointing to where he’d been sitting. “In the patterns of the stone on the ground.”

“Like that one?” Shallan asked, nodding toward the sky.

He followed her gesture, then cursed and crouched down.

“Perhaps we should go indoors,” Rlain said.

“If you saw her in the stones,” Shallan said, “then she’s tainting this entire vision. We’ll find her face in there too.”

“Yes,” Rlain said. “But which would you rather have watching you? A face in a stonework wall or that ?”

“Oh!” Pattern exclaimed. “I like the giant one. It is more intimidating.”

“You like that?” Rlain’s words dripped with a frantic rhythm.

“I have decided I like style, ” Pattern said. “It is a Lightweaver thing, which we are very good at recognizing.” He pointed. “That is style.”

“Cryptics,” Glys said softly. And it seemed to say a lot if one of them found Pattern strange.

Some of the way he acts, Radiant said, her voice amused, he learned from you. I should think you would be proud.

They retreated into a hollow stone building overgrown with crem drippings like candle wax. These sorts of things had been cleaned up when the humans had taken the region, which in retrospect Shallan found a shame. The organic, melted feel was so much more engaging and different from …

Was that Veil snickering at her? Just for liking an odd building? Honestly.

This was where Rlain had grown up. Unlike Renarin’s room, this had no fine furniture—though he did have a basket for possessions and a nice mattress for the bed.

“What’s this?” Renarin said, gesturing to a smaller bed. “Sibling?”

“Hound,” Rlain said. “I raised axehounds when younger. Had to let them go when we fled to Narak.”

“Axehounds,” Renarin said. “I didn’t know that about you.”

“I got along with them better than I did with people.” Rlain shrugged and settled onto the bed, now far too small for him. “Funny. I used to think this bed was so roomy when I was in workform. But today this body feels like the right one, so it’s hard to reconcile my perfect bed with the fact that I no longer fit it.”

“You really grew up here?” Shallan asked, peering around for signs of Mishram’s face. She found it on three separate stones, as if part of the natural pattern of the rock.

“My whole childhood,” he said. “When my parents died in the flood, it was just me in here. The strange one, on his own with his hounds …”

“Was that hard?” Renarin asked. “As a child?”

“I was nearly seven when it happened,” Rlain said. “So, not that bad.”

It took Renarin a moment to process that—Shallan noticed him thinking it through. Singers matured much faster than humans did, reaching adulthood by age ten.

“Still,” Renarin said.

“You get used to being alone,” Rlain said. “Sometimes a little too used to it, you know?”

“I do,” Renarin said. “Trust me.” He looked like he wanted to say something more, and Shallan had the distinct feeling she was intruding. Renarin backed off, turning away and finding something to fiddle with—in this case a few pebbles from his pocket that he could roll and count between his fingers.

“So,” Shallan said, cutting in, “should we talk about the way Mishram is watching us?”

“Mmm …” Pattern said. “You think of her, and it draws her attention. The prison is leaking.”

“She shouldn’t be able to see in here,” Glys said. “This should be safe, even from gods …”

“However, if she’s watching us,” Rlain said, feet up on the head of his bed, “we must be on the right track.”

“I still don’t think we should focus on her,” Renarin said, sitting on the ground beside Rlain’s bed. “We simply need to stop the Ghostbloods, then get out. That’s our mission.”

“I tried,” Shallan said. “And I almost revealed your spren to the gods. Do they have any advice for avoiding that?”

“No armor,” Renarin said, glancing toward Pattern and Testament, who had settled down over beside the firepit. His and Rlain’s mistspren loomed in the doorway, and didn’t fully enter for some reason. “When you summoned that you almost outed us.”

“It doesn’t work here anyway,” Shallan said.

“I wish we could understand,” Rlain said, “what’s being said in the visions. We’re focused on stopping these assassins, but the visions could tell us so much. Like how Honor died.”

“Do we really want to know?” Renarin asked.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Rlain said.

“Because the truth can be painful,” Renarin said.

“So you’d rather not know it?” Rlain asked, his rhythm changing.

“Sometimes,” Shallan said. “Sometimes that’s tempting.”

Renarin looked to her and nodded. “Regardless,” he said, “I think we should try again at stopping the Ghostbloods, in another vision. But Shallan, Rlain and I aren’t experts at acting. I worry we might hold you back.”

“Possibly,” Shallan said. “But you’re experts—or the closest we have—on this realm. I think I’m way better off with you two along. Besides, there’s two of them and three of us. Our best shot at taking them is together.”

“Agreed,” Rlain said. “Can we arm ourselves?”

“I have this,” Shallan said, bringing out the dagger that warped the air. “So we have something.”

“Rlain and I will just have to find weapons in whichever vision we enter,” Renarin said, then took a deep breath. “We’re agreed? We try again to trap or kill the assassins?”

Shallan and Rlain nodded. Now it was up to the spren to warn them when another vision was ready.

Hours after the latest assault, Adolin walked unarmored through the square outside the Oathgate dome, which had fallen quiet once more. Storms, he was exhausted. They’d fended off the attack, but it had lasted much longer than the others.

They’re trying to break us, he thought. Don’t let them. Still, it was difficult to ignore the swarms of exhaustionspren. Only two days in, and he was starting to worry. About the mystery strike force harrying the reinforcements. About losing too many soldiers. About another city doomed to be abandoned.

It was pretty out here on the plaza. Tens of twinkling cookfires dotted the square, each with its own dancing flamespren, made in little portable hearths provided by the Azish. A cool, wet breeze blew from the north, and he found himself enjoying it as a wistful reminder of places he’d lived. The Shattered Plains, then Urithiru, both chillier than his homeland. How long had it been since he’d lived in Alethkar? He’d barely been a man when he’d ridden off to the war on the Shattered Plains. He’d gone back to Kholinar once, of course. And left it burning.

Storms, he’d been trying to relax, but it felt like he was carrying an incredible weight all of a sudden. Memories. He’d failed many times in his life, but Kholinar was different. Everyone made mistakes. But not everyone left their city to the enemy. The city where he, Adolin, should have been king. If he hadn’t abandoned it … both the throne and the land.

At the same time, not everyone murdered another highprince in a secluded hallway. Though Adolin stood by that action and would do it again, that was part of the weight. A better man might have found another way. And a better man certainly wouldn’t have covered it up as he had.

He halted, missing Shallan. He felt the cool wind blow across him and wished he knew its name, for everything had a name. These days he wasn’t completely sure of his own.

“Highprince Adolin?” a voice asked from nearby.

He turned, surprised to see Noura, the head vizier, approaching, her patterned clothing blending in with the night’s shadows. He idly wondered if that gave their soldiers an advantage in the dark.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I have come to request a favor,” the older woman said, walking closer to him, visible by green moonlight as neither of them carried a lamp or sphere. “Will you please cease your corruption of the Prime? You are confusing him and frustrating our attempts to guide him in the correct way.”

Adolin turned back toward the wind, and fell naturally into a parade rest. A soldier’s ways for a soldier’s son. “Do the moons look bigger here in Azimir?”

“I really wouldn’t know, Brightlord.”

He grunted, then shifted—maintaining his stance—to face the emperor’s grand pavilion. “What do you think Yanagawn needs, Noura?”

“Careful guidance,” she replied, “to provide stability to the empire, so the empire may provide stability to him.”

“Sounds like smart words quoted from somewhere.”

“My own essay,” she admitted, “when I applied for this position. Adolin, so long as the emperor is on his throne, Azimir stands. It is one of our strongest mottos. He is to sit and rule, not pretend to be a soldier.”

“Well,” Adolin said, still studying that pavilion—lit from the inside by calm spheres, making the whole thing glow like a lantern. “Sitting there might be what the emperor needs, and what the empire needs. But that’s not what I asked, now is it?”

“Yanagawn needs whatever the empire needs.”

“No,” Adolin said, pivoting to meet her eyes in the darkness. “Noura, that young man needs a friend. ”

“He has friends.”

“He has attendants and minders … and, I’m sure, a great number of people who pretend to be friends for political gain.”

“Yes, a great number of those,” she admitted. “It’s difficult to fend them off sometimes.”

“Noura, I’ve lived that life, worrying which of my friends are only there because they want something from me. That loneliness can destroy a person, and I’m grateful for those I was able to trust. Yanagawn needs someone he can talk to who isn’t in his chain of command, or whatever you call it for someone like him. He needs someone who isn’t related to him, in charge of him, or serving him.”

“He’s stronger than you think.”

“Storm it, Noura, it’s not about strength.” He waved toward the pavilion, and kept his voice down. “Of course he’s strong. But people break, and sometimes the strong ones break harder than the weak ones—because they’re the ones you pile everything on top of. You ever seen what happens when you put too much weight on a horse? I don’t care if it’s an old nag or a Ryshadium warhorse—you can break its spine, Noura.”

“You think I don’t care?” she hissed, stepping right up to him. Though she was quite a bit shorter, there was a fire to her he could practically feel. “I put that boy on the throne, knowing full well what I was asking of him. I live each day doing whatever I can to uphold him. He is my emperor. ”

“Oh?” Adolin said. “Lift told me how he got elevated—that he was picked as a convenient dupe. Someone for Szeth to murder because no one else would take the spot. He’s disposable to you, so don’t moralize to me.”

He expected her to break his gaze, to turn away in shame, but she set her jaw. “Yes,” she admitted. “We did that to a boy, for the good of the empire, but then that boy became my Prime. I’d die for him. Do you believe that, Kholin? The moment we elevated him, he became my responsibility, my duty, my life. ”

“I …” Storms. He’d expected some fiddling bureaucrat. He’d underestimated her, hadn’t he? “I believe you.”

“Then believe that I know what he needs.”

“All right,” Adolin said. “I’ll back off if you can look me straight in the eyes and tell me—in all honesty—that the boy isn’t still there inside that emperor. You tell me he doesn’t need a friend.”

Silence. She held his eyes, and her jaw worked. But she couldn’t force it out. “It isn’t proper,” she finally said, “for our emperor to walk into battle. It violates tradition.”

“I’ve been around enough scribes to know you make tradition. My father and I disagree on a number of things, but there’s one point on which we do agree: any man, anywhere, should have the right to pick up the spear or sword and fight for what he believes in. If you deny Yanagawn that, you deny him manhood itself.”

At this, Noura rolled her eyes. “And you were doing so well … then, reliable old Alethi chauvinism.”

Adolin refused to be baited. He narrowed his eyes. “There’s more here, isn’t there? About me? What is it you don’t like about me, Noura?”

She weighed her response, folding her arms. “You walked away from the throne, Kholin. You are one of the only people in the world who could actually have been on the Prime’s level, and you walked away from it. That degree of irresponsibility is … concerning.”

He started, and dropped his parade stance at last. “You … think I’m going to convince him to do the same?”

“Ideas are more contagious than any disease,” she said. “And Kholin, Yanagawn is a good emperor. He has the heart to be an excellent one. If you’d seen the progress he’s made … If you knew the previous emperors, all excellent candidates on paper, who became shells … Do you realize how long it’s been since we had a Prime who truly understood the needs of the common people? We can’t lose him. ”

“Then listen,” Adolin whispered. “If you keep him isolated, without friends, that will break him, Noura.”

She held his eyes, hers reflecting green moonlight.

“Why did you turn away from your throne?” she finally asked. “What happened?”

“It has something to do with what he and I talked about today,” Adolin said. “Something I never put a finger on. Oaths versus promises. Expectation versus execution. Give Yanagawn a little freedom, Noura, and he’ll soar. Hold him down, and he’ll start looking for exits lower to the ground.” He grinned at her. “And if you want someone near him who doesn’t want anything, then, well … consider that there’s a single person in this storming world who had it all in the palm of his hand, and walked away.” Adolin tapped his chest. “Know for certain that one man doesn’t want your emperor’s throne, or his money, or his power. Consider that, then ask yourself why I care.”

“Because you’ve been there,” she whispered.

“Storming right I have,” Adolin said. “Still am.” He gave her a bow of the head, then turned and walked off. She didn’t call for him to return or demand he stay away. So he figured that was a battle won, or at least fought to a stalemate.

THE END OF

Day Four