Chapter 7

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.

—From Knights of Wind and Truth , page 5

T hey brought the horse.

They literally brought the storming horse.

With Adolin riding it.

Shallan stood on the obsidian stone outside Lasting Integrity with her hands on her hips. Adolin’s soldiers were breaking camp around them. The honorspren group who had left earlier had gathered in the near distance, deciding their next move.

Gallant, Adolin’s Ryshadium, had a bit of a glow to him beyond that of the Lashings. When he moved his head, he left an unusual afterimage. She’d never understood why. Now, with Stormlight, he glowed even more. Shallan expected the enormous black horse to panic as he hovered a few feet off the ground, but while Gallant worked his legs as if he were running in slow motion, he otherwise seemed calm.

Adolin grinned at her from the horse’s back.

“You could leave the equipment behind,” Shallan said, folding her arms. “You don’t need all of that, do you?”

“Shallan,” he said, offended. “I’m traveling light! I’ve left ninety percent of my clothing.”

“And brought all of your swords.”

“I need them.”

Most of the weapons were packed away in special boxes hung from Gallant’s sides, though a few—like Adolin’s pet greatsword—were in their own sheaths attached to the saddle. Shallan walked up and tapped the enormous two-handed weapon. “You need this ? Adolin, it weighs almost as much as a person.”

“It weighs seven pounds,” Adolin said dryly. “Have you ever wielded anything other than a Shardblade?”

“My razor-sharp wit.” She hesitated. “Okay, maybe more like blunt-force wit, applied liberally, with no regard for collateral damage.” She patted Gallant on the side and walked forward past his moving legs—which ended in wide stone hooves, flatter and harder than those of common horses. He looked down and met her eyes with glassy blue ones of his own, then turned his head up toward the sky. Almost aspirationally. As if he’d been waiting for a chance to fly.

Well, she supposed if it wasn’t going to panic him … She couldn’t decide, though, if Adolin—strapped in, glowing faintly himself from a Lashing—was inspiring or patently comical. She glanced at Maya, who folded her arms and was smiling, shaking her head. Storms, she was making so much progress so quickly. It gave Shallan hope for Testament.

That thought made her turn toward the rocky shore between land and glass-bead ocean. Several dozen figures lingered there, standing waist-deep: a variety of spren, each with their eyes scratched out.

“There were hundreds of deadeyes on that shore at one point,” Adolin said softly. “Do you think they knew about the trial somehow? And what Maya would say?”

“They had to,” Shallan said.

“Who told them though?”

She thought of her sketches and the strange things her fingers sometimes knew. “No one.”

As they watched, a cultivationspren like Maya turned and walked out into the ocean.

“They return,” Maya said in her rasping voice. “Return. To the place … where they were lost.”

“You mean they return to the bearers of their Blades?” Adolin said.

A living Shardblade like Pattern never fully returned to Shadesmar while their Radiant was in the Physical Realm. Shallan would summon him as a Blade, and his little pattern form would fade from her skirt—or from wherever it was—and travel instantly to her as a Blade. When she dismissed that Blade, he’d appear as a little pattern again. He was only physical in Shadesmar right now because she’d traveled here through an Oathgate.

Deadeyes were different. When dismissed as Blades, they returned to Shadesmar to wander. Notum had told her once that they tended to stay near where the bearer of their Blade was in the Physical Realm. So many of them. Hundreds, living these terrible half lives. “We’ll help them, Maya,” Shallan said. “Once we figure out how to replicate the progress you’ve made.”

She nodded. Behind them, the Windrunners lowered Gallant back down. The horse snorted in annoyance. Or … could she really say it felt such emotions? Maybe she was being influenced too much by Adolin, who swore that Ryshadium had near-human levels of intelligence. Surely it wasn’t annoyed; it was just snorting the way horses did.

Maya continued to stare as another deadeye walked into the bizarre surf.

“Lost,” Maya whispered. “Those are lost Blades, Adolin.”

Adolin dismounted. “Lost Blades, Maya?”

“Swords,” she said. She still labored sometimes to speak. “In stone. In water. Lost. For so many, many years …”

“What happens to a Shardblade if it’s abandoned?” Shallan asked. “Like if a ship bearing a Shardbearer sinks?”

“It stays there forever,” Adolin said. “Maya, they wouldn’t be here if they’re lost. They’d be manifested as Blades in the real world.”

“No,” she said. “People stop thinking about them. They fade away after centuries … to be lost. Their sword vanishes from your world, and they wander forever.”

“Poor things,” Shallan said as the last few turned and walked away into the beads. “We will help them, Maya. Adolin and I will make the time, when this is all over. We’ll find each and every one.”

Adolin frowned, perhaps considering the logistics of that. “I wonder if Aunt Navani could design a fabrial to help locate them. We could at least try to make them comfortable on this side.”

Maya smiled at that. “I think … that would be wonderful.”

Adolin went to his soldiers to prepare them for his departure. Shallan, in turn, hiked over to Vathah. The Lightweaver was kneeling with his spren beside the bead ocean, practicing commanding the beads. As she watched, he sculpted a chair from them—the little beads locking together like they were magnetic. He was better at this than she, though he still needed a bead to use as a model. He clutched one in his hand, the soul of a chair in the Physical Realm.

This was a lesser and easier skill than the next step—using Stormlight to re-create the entire object on this side, which was called manifesting. Vathah took earnestly to practicing both, the same as he’d started doing with his artwork. Shallan kept wanting to describe him as the “former deserter,” but that was wrong. She needed to actively change her perspective; he’d come a long way since she’d recruited him. These days—grouchy though he might be—he was an accomplished Lightweaver.

“It looks like only Adolin and I will go with the Windrunners,” she said to him and Mosaic, his spren. “With the horse.”

“You taking or leaving your spren?” he asked, standing up and letting the chair collapse back to beads.

It was a good question. They could be left, and be summoned to the Physical Realm once Shallan arrived. Maya had seemed worried about that though, and Shallan had felt the same from Testament. She didn’t want them to feel abandoned.

“We’ll bring them,” she said. “Including Pattern.”

“Makes sense,” Vathah replied. “If something unexpected happens, it will be better if you aren’t split up.”

“You all won’t be too bored taking the longer trip home?”

“Bored?” Mosaic asked, standing next to him. “Bored is good.”

Vathah laughed. “She’s right, Brightness. While you’ve been inside that block of a building, Mosaic and I have been having a grand time playing cards with nothing important to do.”

She eyed him. She’d have believed that of Gaz or Red. Vathah though? He wilted if you left him without attention.

“I like it here,” he admitted, staring out over the churning bead ocean. “I like making things out of those beads, and I feel … more in touch with my powers. My Lightweaving is working better and better, and now that we have more Stormlight from those Windrunners … well, I’m not sad to take a slower route home, Brightness. Ishnah, though, is going to throw a fit. She’s beyond tired of the rest of us.”

“She’ll survive,” Shallan said. “I’m sure she can get a little more mileage out of flirting with the soldiers.”

“They could do better,” he said. “Wish they wouldn’t encourage her.” Vathah glanced away. Toward Ishnah. Then blushed. Mosaic hummed happily.

Vathah actually blushed. About Ishnah. Not Beryl, who was sultry enough to be mistaken for some kind of passionspren. Ishnah: short, not particularly curvaceous, and with a striking tendency to use her Lightweaving to give herself edgy tattoos and black fingernails. Huh. Well, good for him. Assuming he didn’t screw it up.

Back among the caravan soldiers, Felt waved to Shallan in farewell. He was one of Adolin’s soldiers: a shorter, foreign man with drooping mustaches and a floppy hat. He’d traveled Shadesmar before, and she had the impression that he wasn’t even from Roshar. But if she was going to leave the caravan in someone’s hands, he—as one of Dalinar’s elites—would be more than capable.

Soon, a small retinue of honorspren leaders exited Lasting Integrity. Shallan moved toward them, boots sliding on the obsidian as she hopped down over a small shelf. She’d changed into travel clothing: trousers under a long skirtlike coat. Radiant preferred something more battle-ready, but Shallan had chosen their outfit. She had, however, put her hair into a tight bun. She’d made the mistake of leaving it loose while traveling with Windrunners before.

Kelek stood at the front of the small group of honorspren. “You still not willing to come?” Shallan asked him. “We could put you on the horse with Adolin.”

He merely wrung his hands and looked at the ground. So, Shallan waved to the honorspren who’d come to send them off—and gave them an upbeat smile, because she figured it would annoy them. Then she turned to go.

“Take care,” Kelek said, “with your two bonds, child. You may see things that are not good for the healthy mortal mind.”

“Fortunately, I haven’t had one in years,” she said, glancing back. “I make do with this one instead.”

“I’m sorry. I know how that feels.”

“Part of being an artist is training to see the world from many different perspectives.” Shallan shrugged. “My way has its difficulties, but once in a while I see light that no one else seems to. Light reflecting off waves, breaking into sprays upon the ocean, making shapes appear for a heartbeat. The light reflecting in the eyes of someone I’m talking to, as if gleaming from their soul. In those moments, I know that what I am lets me see what others cannot. Those moments, I’m … if not grateful, then appreciative.”

Kelek cocked his head. “Light … Yes. Light, energy, matter, Investiture. They’re all variations on a theme—the same essence, in different forms. That is especially important for you to understand, with your illusions.”

She frowned. “But … illusions can’t change anything, Kelek. They’re just figments made of Stormlight.”

“Oh?” Kelek said, pointing to the honorspren. “What do you think they are? Investiture. A form of Light. There were once Lightweavers who could give some substance, briefly, to the things they created.”

“There were?” Shallan said. But then she thought back to a moment at the Battle of Thaylen Field where she could have sworn she’d felt the illusory versions of Radiant and Veil as if they were briefly real. It wasn’t the only time, was it? When one of her illusions had been a little too solid?

Light … matter … energy. They were the same; when you manifested an object in Shadesmar, you used Stormlight to make a physical re-creation. And spren could be physical, even if they were made of Light.

She needed to change her perspective.

“If I am to give you parting wisdom,” the Herald said, “it is this: just because something is fleeting, do not imagine it to be unimportant. ” He hesitated, then continued. “And likewise, just because something is eternal, do not assume it to be … to be relevant …” He pulled his arms close around himself. “I’m sorry I am not what you wanted me to be. But thank you. For not hurting me. For listening.”

Another change of perspective, then. Shallan nodded. She’d begun feeling the trip had been a failure, but it wasn’t. Adolin had made some headway with the honorspren. They’d delivered a Radiant ambassador. And she … well, she had banished Formless, had incorporated Veil, and had found the courage to explain so much to Adolin.

Plus, maybe she’d helped Kelek. A lonely old hero, worn ragged by time and from standing too long in the wind.

So she hugged him.

Nearby, the honorspren gasped. Probably the right reaction to someone unexpectedly grabbing one of the Heralds—demigods of myth. But Kelek wrapped his arms around her and held on.

“I want to be better,” he whispered.

“We all do,” she said.

That was the sole exchange they needed. She pulled back, and he nodded, his eyes wet with tears. Then she turned and walked to Adolin, Maya, the Cryptics, and the Windrunners.

“Ready?” Drehy asked, his spren at his side, manifesting as a tall, fashionable honorspren woman.

Shallan nodded. For gear, she’d brought only her satchel, in which she’d stashed some necessities. Months spent chasing Jasnah, then losing everything and barely surviving to reach the Shattered Plains, had taught her to travel light. With a more grounded interpretation of that term than Adolin’s.

“Great,” Drehy said, holding up a fabrial built around a glowing yellow heliodor. He pointed across the bead ocean. “We’re going to head for the Azimir Oathgate.”

“That one is letting people transfer to Shadesmar now?” Shallan asked.

“The awakening of the tower persuaded most of the gate spren,” Drehy said. “The two at Azimir are surlier than most, but they should let us through.” He pointed with his fabrial. “Flight here took just over four hours. As long as we stay at forty-eight degrees from the baseline, we should be right on target.”

“Wait,” she said, trying to catch up. “Awakened tower? And what is that fabrial?”

“They call it a ‘compass,’” Drehy said. “An old-style device that points the way in Shadesmar—we found a few in the hidden Urithiru storehouses, courtesy of Bondsmith Navani and the Sibling.”

Shallan blinked. Bondsmith Navani? The Sibling? Wit was probably laughing somewhere to himself at all the things he’d left out of their admittedly brief conversations.

“We’ll fill you in as we fly,” Drehy said, with a grin. “Let’s get going.”

The Windrunners distributed glass masks against the wind, then raised them into the sky with a Lashing. Gallant gave an excited whinny, then led the way eagerly—as if galloping in the air, Adolin in the saddle.

Lasting Integrity, the honorspren, and the caravan dwindled behind them. Shrank. Then vanished.

Soon after, Radiant found herself wishing that the Windrunners had brought Navani’s traveling sphere. Even with the mask, flying face-first into the wind wasn’t particularly enjoyable. It was at best mildly miserable. In the sphere, Shallan could have spent the time drawing.

Adolin and Gallant, naturally, loved it. They flew together, Adolin standing up in his stirrups, holding to the reins—which on a Ryshadium were more about stabilizing oneself than directing the beast, as commands were commonly given through the knees. On Gallant’s current tack, they didn’t attach to his face, but to a harness around the neck.

Adolin was grinning like a boy playing in the rain. And Gallant galloped eagerly, wind blowing his lips back to expose his teeth, making him look like he was grinning. Adolin Kholin, highprince, son of the most powerful man on the planet, renowned swordsman, was secretly one of the goofiest people she’d ever known. Shallan emerged again and blinked, taking a Memory of the two of them—Adolin with his goggles on, hair blowing about frantically, Gallant charging.

Adolin saw her watching and waved eagerly, then gestured to Gallant as if to say, Hey, Shallan! Can you believe I’m riding a flying horse?

It made her heart melt into a pool of bubbling jelly. Perhaps the greatest miracle of her life was that Adolin had somehow managed to remain single until she arrived. She passed the next hour or so admiring him off and on.

Right up until the moment they were attacked.