Unable to wait any longer, Shallan dug into her meal. Adolin settled down across from her and attacked his own food. For a time, Shallan ignored her pain and savored the moment—good food, good company, the setting sun casting ruby and topaz light across the mountains and into the room. She felt like drawing this scene, but knew it was the type of moment she couldn’t capture on a page. It wasn’t about content or composition, but the pleasure of living.
The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate.
Adolin—after finishing an entire plate of stranna haspers steamed in the shell—picked out a few chunks of pork from a creamy red curry, then put them on a plate and handed them in her direction. “Wanna try a bite?”
Shallan made a gagging noise.
“Come on,” he said, wagging the plate. “It’s delicious.”
“It would burn my lips off, Adolin Kholin,” Shallan said. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you picking the absolute spiciest concoction Palona sent. Men’s food is dreadful. How can you taste anything beneath all that spice?”
“Keeps it from being bland,” Adolin said, stabbing one of the chunks and popping it in his mouth. “There’s nobody here but us. You can try it.”
She eyed it, remembering the times as a child when she’d sneaked tastes of men’s food—though not this specific dish.
Pattern buzzed. “Is this the inappropriate thing I’m supposed to stop you from doing?”
“No,” Shallan said, and Pattern settled back down. Perhaps a chaperone, she thought, who believes basically everything I tell him isn’t going to be the most effective.
Still, with a sigh, she grabbed a chunk of the pork in some flatbread. She had left Jah Keved hunting new experiences, after all.
She tried a bite, and was given immediate reason to regret her decisions in life.
Eyes brimming with tears, she scrambled for the cup of water Adolin, insufferably, had picked up to hand toward her. She gulped that down, though it didn’t seem to do anything. She followed it by wiping her tongue with a napkin—in the most feminine way possible, of course.
“I hate you,” she said, drinking his water next.
Adolin chuckled.
“Oh!” Pattern said suddenly, bursting up from the bowl to hover in the air. “You were talking about mating! I’m to make sure you don’t accidentally mate, as mating is forbidden by human society until you have first performed appropriate rituals! Yes, yes. Mmmm. Dictates of custom require following certain patterns before you copulate. I’ve been studying this!”
“Oh, Stormfather,” Shallan said, covering her eyes with her freehand. A few shamespren even peeked in for a glimpse before vanishing. Twice in one week.
“Very well, you two,” Pattern said. “No mating. NO MATING.” He hummed to himself, as if pleased, then sank down onto a plate.
“Well, that was humiliating,” Shallan said. “Can we maybe talk about those books you brought? Or ancient Vorin theology, or strategies for counting grains of sand? Anything other than what just happened? Please?”
Adolin chuckled, then reached for a slim notebook that was on top of the pile. “May Aladar sent teams to question Vedekar Perel’s family and friends. They discovered where he was before he died, who last saw him, and wrote down anything suspicious. I thought we could read the report.”
“And the rest of the books?”
“You seemed lost when Father asked you about Makabaki politics,” Adolin said, pouring some wine, merely a soft yellow. “So I asked around, and it seems that some of the ardents hauled their entire libraries out here. I was able to get a servant to locate you a few books I’d enjoyed on the Makabaki.”
“Books?” Shallan said. “You?”
“I don’t spend all my time hitting people with swords, Shallan,” Adolin said. “Jasnah and Aunt Navani made very certain that my youth was filled with interminable periods spent listening to ardents lecture me on politics and trade. Some of it stuck in my brain, against my natural inclinations. Those three books are the best of the ones I remember having read to me, though the last one is an updated version. I thought it might help.”
“That’s thoughtful,” she said. “Really, Adolin. Thank you.”
“I figured, you know, if we’re going to move forward with the betrothal…”
“Why wouldn’t we?” Shallan said, suddenly panicked.
“I don’t know. You’re a Radiant, Shallan. Some kind of half-divine being from mythology. And all along I was thinking we were giving you a favorable match.” He stood up and started pacing. “Damnation. I didn’t mean to say it like that. I’m sorry. I just … I keep worrying that I’m going to screw this up somehow.”
“You worry you’re going to screw it up?” Shallan said, feeling a warmth inside that wasn’t completely due to the wine.
“I’m not good with relationships, Shallan.”
“Is there anyone who actually is? I mean, is there really someone out there who looks at relationships and thinks, ‘You know what, I’ve got this’? Personally, I rather think we’re all collectively idiots about it.”
“It’s worse for me.”
“Adolin, dear, the last man I had a romantic interest in was not only an ardent—forbidden to court me in the first place—but also turned out to be an assassin who was merely trying to obtain my favor so he could get close to Jasnah. I think you overestimate everyone else’s capability in this regard.”
He stopped pacing. “An assassin.”
“Seriously,” Shallan said. “He almost killed me with a loaf of poisoned bread.”
“Wow. I have to hear this story.”
“Fortunately, I just told it to you. His name was Kabsal, and he was so incredibly sweet to me that I can almost forgive him for trying to kill me.”
Adolin grinned. “Well, it’s nice to hear that I don’t have a high bar to jump—all I have to do is not poison you. Though you shouldn’t be telling me about past lovers. You’ll make me jealous.”
“Please,” Shallan said, dipping her bread in some leftover sweet curry. Her tongue still hadn’t recovered. “You’ve courted, like, half the warcamps.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Isn’t it? From what I hear, I’d have to go to Herdaz to find an eligible woman you haven’t pursued.” She held out her hand to him, to help her to her feet.
“Are you mocking my failings?”
“No, I’m lauding them,” she said, standing up beside him. “You see, Adolin dear, if you hadn’t wrecked all those other relationships, you wouldn’t be here. With me.” She pulled close. “And so, in reality, you’re the greatest at relationships there ever was. You ruined only the wrong ones, you see.”
He leaned down. His breath smelled of spices, his uniform of the crisp, clean starch Dalinar required. His lips touched hers, and her heart fluttered. So warm.
“No mating!”
She started, pulling out of the kiss to find Pattern hovering beside them, pulsing quickly through shapes.