Wait until Adolin sees a Cryptic in Shadesmar form, she thought, with a full body but twisting shapes for his head.
Adolin tossed the little stitched ball into the air and caught it with his right hand—the one that Renarin, amazingly, had healed. She wasn’t the only one practicing with her powers. She was especially glad someone else had a Shardblade now. When the highstorms returned, and they began working the Oathgate in earnest, she’d have help.
“These reports,” Shallan said, tapping the notebook against her hand, “are both informative and useless. Nothing connects Perel and Sadeas save their both being lighteyes—that and the part of the tower they were in. Perhaps mere opportunity drove the killer’s choice of victims.”
“You’re saying someone happened to kill a highprince,” Adolin said, “by accident? Like … a back-alley murder outside a pub?”
“Maybe. Brightness Aladar suggests in here that your father lay down some rules on people moving alone through empty parts of the tower.”
“I still think there might be two murderers,” Adolin said. “You know … like someone saw Sadeas dead, and figured they could get away with killing someone else, blaming it on the first fellow.”
Oh, Adolin, Shallan thought. He’d arrived at a theory he liked, and now wouldn’t let it go. It was a common mistake warned of in her scientific books.
Adolin did have one point—a highprince being murdered was unlikely to be random chance. There were no signs of Sadeas’s Shardblade, Oathbringer, being used by anyone, not even a rumor of it.
Maybe the second death is a kind of decoy? Shallan thought, riffling through the report again. An attempt to make it seem like random attacks? No, that was too convoluted—and she had no more evidence for it than Adolin had for his theory.
That did leave her thinking. Maybe everyone was paying attention to these two deaths because they’d happened to important lighteyes. Could there be other deaths they hadn’t noticed because they’d happened to less prominent individuals? If a beggar had been found in Adolin’s proverbial back alley behind a pub, would anyone have remarked upon it—even if he’d been stabbed through the eye?
I need to get out there among them and see what I can find. She opened her mouth to tell him she should probably turn in, but he was already standing, stretching.
“I think we’ve done what we can with that,” he said, nodding toward the report. “At least for tonight.”
“Yeah,” Shallan said, feigning a yawn. “Probably.”
“So…” Adolin said, then took a deep breath. “There’s … something else.”
Shallan frowned. Something else? Why did he suddenly look like he was preparing to do something difficult?
He’s going to break off our betrothal! a part of her mind thought, though she pounced on that emotion and shoved it back behind the curtains where it belonged.
“Okay, this isn’t easy,” Adolin said. “I don’t want to offend, Shallan. But … you know how I had you eat that man’s food?”
“Um, yes. If my tongue is particularly spicy in the coming days, I blame you.”
“Shallan, there’s something similar that we need to talk about. Something about you we can’t just ignore.”
“I…” I killed my parents. I stabbed my mother through the chest and I strangled my father while singing to him.
“You,” Adolin said, “have a Shardblade.”
I didn’t want to kill her. I had to. I had to.
Adolin grabbed her by the shoulders and she started, focusing on him. He was … grinning?
“You have a Shardblade, Shallan! A new one. That’s incredible. I dreamed for years of earning my Blade! So many men spend their lives with that very dream and never see it fulfilled. And here you have one!”
“And that’s a good thing, right?” she said, held in his grip with arms pulled tight against her body.
“Of course it is!” Adolin said, letting go of her. “But, I mean, you’re a woman.”
“Was it the makeup that tipped you off, or the dress? Oh, it was the breasts, wasn’t it? Always giving us away.”
“Shallan, this is serious.”
“I know,” she said, calming her nerves. “Yes, Pattern can become a Shardblade, Adolin. I don’t see what this has to do with anything. I can’t give it away.… Stormfather. You want to teach me how to use it, don’t you?”
He grinned. “You said that Jasnah was a Radiant too. Women, gaining Shardblades. It’s weird, but it’s not like we can ignore it. What about Plate? Do you have that hidden somewhere too?”
“Not that I know of,” she said. Her heart was beating quickly, her skin growing cold, her muscles tense. She fought against the sensation. “I don’t know where Plate comes from.”
“I know it’s not feminine, but who cares? You’ve got a sword; you should know how to use it, and custom can go to Damnation. There, I said it.” He took a deep breath. “I mean, the bridgeboy can have one, and he’s darkeyed. Well, he was. Anyway, it’s not so different from that.”
Thank you, Shallan thought, for ranking all women as something equivalent to peasants. But she held her tongue. This was obviously an important moment for Adolin, and he was trying to be broad-minded.
But … thinking of what she’d done pained her. Holding the weapon would be worse. So much worse.
She wanted to hide. But she couldn’t. This truth refused to budge from her mind. Could she explain? “So, you’re right, but—”
“Great!” Adolin said. “Great. I brought the Blade guards so we won’t hurt each other. I stashed them back at the guard post. I’ll go fetch them.”
He was out the door a moment later. Shallan stood with her hand stretched toward him, objections dying on her lips. She curled her fingers up and brought her hand to her breast, her heart thundering within.
“Mmmm,” Pattern said. “This is good. This needs to be done.”
Shallan scrambled through the room to the small mirror she’d hung from the wall. She stared at herself, eyes wide, hair an utter mess. She’d started breathing in sharp, quick gasps. “I can’t—” she said. “I can’t be this person, Pattern. I can’t just wield the sword. Some brilliant knight on a tower, pretending she should be followed.”
Pattern hummed softly a tone she’d come to recognize as confusion. The bewilderment of one species trying to comprehend the mind of another.
Sweat trickled down Shallan’s face, running beside her eye as she stared at herself. What did she expect to see? The thought of breaking down in front of Adolin heightened her tension. Her every muscle grew taut, and the corners of her vision started to darken. She could see only before herself, and she wanted to run, go somewhere. Be away.
No. No, just be someone else.
Hands shaking, she scrambled over and dug out her drawing pad. She ripped pages, flinging them out of the way to reach an empty one, then seized her charcoal pencil.
Pattern moved over to her, a floating ball of shifting lines, buzzing in concern. “Shallan? Please. What is wrong?”
I can hide, Shallan thought, drawing at a frenzied pace. Shallan can flee and leave someone in her place.