Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

“That’s fantastic!”

“Yeah,” Adolin said. “I’m not hopeful. The assassin… anyway, we’ll see what happens tomorrow, though I’ll have to do this between the other work Father has for me.”

“The duels,” Shallan said, leaning in. “What is going on there, Adolin?”

He seemed hesitant.

“Whatever is going on in the camps now,” she said, speaking more softly, “Jasnah didn’t know about it. I feel woefully ignorant about politics here, Adolin. Your father and Highprince Sadeas had a falling-out, I’ve gathered. The king has changed the nature of these plateau runs, and everyone is talking about how you’re dueling now. But from what I’ve been able to gather, you never stopped dueling.”

“It’s different,” he said. “Now I’m dueling to win.”

“And you didn’t before?”

“No, then I dueled to punish.” He glanced about, then met her eyes. “It began when my father started seeing visions…”

He continued. He poured out a surprising story, one with far greater detail than she’d anticipated. A story of betrayal, and of hope. Visions of the past. A unified Alethkar, prepared to weather a coming storm.

She didn’t know what to make of it all, though she gathered that Adolin was telling her of it because he knew the rumors in camp. She’d heard of Dalinar’s fits, of course, and had an inkling of what Sadeas had done. When Adolin mentioned that his father wanted the Knights Radiant to return, Shallan felt a chill. She glanced about for Pattern—he’d be close—but couldn’t find him.

The meat of the story, at least in Adolin’s estimation, was the betrayal by Sadeas. The young prince’s eyes grew dark, face flushed, as he talked of being abandoned on the Plains, surrounded by enemies. He seemed embarrassed when he spoke of salvation by a lowly bridge crew.

He’s actually confiding in me, Shallan thought, feeling a thrill. She rested her freehand on his arm as he spoke, an innocent gesture, but it seemed to spur him forward as he quietly explained Dalinar’s plan. She wasn’t certain he should be sharing all of this with her. They barely knew one another. But speaking of it seemed to lift a weight from Adolin’s back, and he grew more relaxed.

“I guess,” Adolin said, “that’s the end of it. I’m supposed to win Shardblades off the others, taking away their bite, embarrassing them. But I don’t know if it will work.”

“Why not?” Shallan asked.

“The ones who agree to duel me aren’t important enough,” he said, forming a fist. “If I win too much from them, the real targets—the highprinces—will get scared of me and refuse duels. I need matches that are more high profile. No, what I need is to duel Sadeas. Pound that grinning face of his into the stones and take back my father’s Blade. He’s too oily, though. We’ll never get him to agree.”

She found herself wishing desperately to do something, anything, to help. She felt herself melting at the intense concern in those eyes, the passion.

Remember Kabsal… she reminded herself again.

Well, Adolin wasn’t likely to try to assassinate her—but then, that didn’t mean she should let her brain turn to curry paste around him. She cleared her throat, tearing her eyes away from his and looking down at her sketch.

“Bother,” she said. “I’ve left you upset. I’m not very good at this wooing thing.”

“Could have fooled me…” Adolin said, resting his hand on her arm.

Shallan covered another blush by ducking her head and digging into her satchel. “You,” she said, “need to know what your cousin was working on before she died.”

“Another volume in her father’s biography?”

“No,” Shallan said, getting out a sheet of paper. “Adolin, Jasnah thought that the Voidbringers were going to return.”

“What?” he said, frowning. “She didn’t even believe in the Almighty. Why would she believe in the Voidbringers?”

“She had evidence,” Shallan said, tapping the paper with one finger. “A lot of that sank in the ocean, I’m afraid, but I do have some of her notes, and… Adolin, how hard do you think it would be to convince the highprinces to get rid of their parshmen?”

“Get rid of what?”

“How hard would it to be to make everyone stop using parshmen as slaves? Give them away, or…” Storms. She didn’t want to start a genocide here, did she? But these were the Voidbringers. “… or set them free or something. Get them out of the warcamps.”

“How difficult would it be?” Adolin said. “Off the cuff, I’d say impossible. That, or really impossible. Why would we even want to do something like that?”

“Jasnah thought they might be related to the Voidbringers and their return.”

Adolin shook his head, looking bemused. “Shallan, we can barely get the highprinces to fight this war properly. If my father or the king were to require everyone to get rid of their parshmen… Storms! It would break the kingdom in a heartbeat.”

So Jasnah was right on that count as well. Unsurprising. Shallan was interested to see how violently Adolin himself opposed the idea. He took a big gulp of wine, seeming utterly floored.

Time to pull back, then. This meeting had gone very well; she wouldn’t want to end it on a sour note. “It was something Jasnah said,” Shallan said, “but really, I’d rather that Brightlady Navani judge how important a suggestion it was. She would know her daughter, her notes, better than anyone.”

Adolin nodded. “So go to her.”

Shallan tapped the paper in her fingers. “I’ve tried. She’s not been very accommodating.”

“Aunt Navani can be overbearing sometimes.”

“It’s not that,” Shallan said, scanning the words on the letter. It was a reply she’d gotten after requesting to meet the woman and discuss her daughter’s work. “She doesn’t want to meet with me. She barely seems to want to acknowledge I exist.”

Adolin sighed. “She doesn’t want to believe. About Jasnah, I mean. You represent something to her—the truth, in a way. Give her time. She just needs to grieve.”

“I’m not certain if this is something that should wait, Adolin.”

“I’ll talk to her,” he said. “How about that?”

“Wonderful,” she said. “Much like you yourself.”

He grinned. “It’s nothing. I mean, if we’re going to halfway-almost-kind-of-maybe-get-married, we should probably look out for one another’s interests.” He paused. “Don’t mention that parshman thing to anyone else, though. That’s not something that will go over well.”

She nodded absently, then realized she’d been staring at him. She was going to kiss those lips of his someday. She let herself imagine it.

And, Ash’s eyes… he had a very friendly way about him. She hadn’t expected that in someone so highborn. She’d never actually met anyone of his rank before coming to the Shattered Plains, but all the men she knew near his level had been stiff and even angry.

Not Adolin. Storms, but being with him was something else she could get very, very used to.