Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

“But why only swords? Father asks why the ancient Radiants never made tools for the people.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I love that your powers make you a better artist, Shallan. Father was wrong. The Radiants weren’t just soldiers! Yes, they created incredible weapons, but they also created incredible art! And maybe once this war is done, we can find other uses for their powers.”

Storms, his enthusiasm could be intoxicating. As they walked toward the tailor’s shop, she was loath to part with him, though Veil did need to get on with her day’s work.

I can be anyone, Shallan thought, noticing a few joyspren blowing past, like a swirl of blue leaves. I can become anything. Adolin deserved someone far better than her. Could she … become that someone? Craft for him the perfect bride, a woman that looked and acted as befitted Adolin Kholin?

It wouldn’t be her. The real her was a bruised and sorry thing, painted up all pretty, but inside a horrid mess. She already put a face over that for him. Why not go a few steps farther? Radiant … Radiant could be his perfect bride, and she did like him.

The thought made Shallan feel cold inside.

Once they were close enough to the tailor’s shop that she didn’t worry about him being safe as he walked back on his own, Shallan forced herself to pull out of his grip. She held his hand a moment with her freehand. “I need to be going.”

“You aren’t to meet the cult until sunset.”

“I need to steal some food first to pay them.”

Still, he held to her hand. “What do you do out there, Shallan? Who do you become?”

“Everyone,” she said. Then she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for being you, Adolin.”

“Everyone else was taken already,” he mumbled.

Never stopped me.

He watched her until she ducked around a corner, heart thumping. Adolin Kholin in her life was like a warm sunrise.

Veil started to seep out, and she was forced to acknowledge that sometimes she preferred the storm and the rain to the sun.

She checked at the drop point, inside a corner of a building that was now rubble. Here, Red had deposited a pack that contained Veil’s outfit. She grabbed it and went hunting a good place to change.

The end of the world had come, but that seemed most true after a storm. Refuse strewn about, people who hadn’t gotten to shelters moaning from fallen shacks or alongside streets.

It was like each storm tried to wipe them off Roshar, and they only remained through sheer grit and luck. Now, with two storms, it was even worse. If they defeated the Voidbringers, would the Everstorm remain? Had it begun to erode their society in a way that—win the war or not—would eventually end with them all swept out to sea?

She felt her face changing as she walked, draining Stormlight from her satchel. It rose in her like a flaring flame, before dimming to an ember as she became the people from the sketches Adolin had seen.

The poor man who tried doggedly to keep the area around his little pallet clean, as if to try to maintain some control over an insane world.

The lighteyed girl who wondered what had happened to the joy of adolescence. Instead of her wearing her first havah to a ball, her family was forced to take in dozens of relatives from neighboring towns, and she spent the days locked away because the streets weren’t safe.

The mother with a child, sitting in darkness, looking toward the horizon and a hidden sun.

Face after face. Life after life. Overpowering, intoxicating, alive. Breathing, and crying, and laughing, and being. So many hopes, so many lives, so many dreams.

She unbuttoned her havah up the side, then let it fall. She dropped her satchel, which thumped from the heavy book inside. She stepped forward in only her shift, safehand uncovered, feeling the wind on her skin. She was still wearing an illusion, one that didn’t disrobe, so nobody could see her.

Nobody could see her. Had anyone ever seen her? She stopped on the street corner, wearing shifting faces and clothing, enjoying the sensation of freedom, clothed yet naked skin shivering at the wind’s kiss.

Around her, people ducked away into buildings, frightened.

Just another spren, Shallan/Veil/Radiant thought. That’s what I am. Emotion made carnal.

She lifted her hands to the sides, exposed, yet invisible. She breathed the breaths of a city’s people.

“Mmm…” Pattern said, unweaving himself from her discarded dress. “Shallan?”

“Maybe,” she said, lingering.

Finally, she let herself slip fully into Veil’s persona. She immediately shook her head and fetched the clothing and satchel. She was lucky it hadn’t been stolen. Foolish girl. They didn’t have time for prancing around from poem to poem.

Veil found a secluded location beside a large gnarled tree whose roots spread all the way along the wall in either direction. She quickly rearranged her underclothing, then put on her trousers and did up her shirt. She pulled on her hat, checked herself in a hand mirror, then nodded.

Right, then. Time to meet up with Vathah.

He was waiting at the inn where Wit had once stayed. Radiant retained hope that she’d meet him again there, for a more thorough interrogation. In the private room, away from the eyes of the fretting innkeeper, Vathah laid out a couple of spheres to light the maps he’d purchased. They detailed the manor she intended to hit this afternoon.

“They call it the Mausoleum,” Vathah explained as Veil sat. He showed her an artist’s sketch he’d purchased, which was of the building’s grand hall. “Those statues are all Soulcast, by the way. They’re favored servants of the house, turned to storming stone.”

“It’s a sign of honor and respect among lighteyes.”

“It’s creepy,” Vathah said. “When I die, burn my corpse up right good. Don’t leave me staring for eternity while your descendants sip their tea.”

Veil nodded absently, placing Shallan’s sketchbook on the table. “Pick an alias from this. This map says the larder is on the outside wall. Time is tight, so we might want to do this one the easy way. Have Red make a distraction, then use Shallan’s Blade to cut us an opening right in to the food.”

“You know, they’re said to have quite the fortune at the Mausoleum. The Tenet family riches are…” He trailed off as he saw her expression. “No riches, then.”

“We get the food to pay the cult, then we get out.”

“Fine.” He settled on the image of the man sweeping around his pallet, staring at it. “You know, when you reformed me from banditry, I figured I was done with stealing.”

“This is different.”

“Different how? We stole mostly food back then too, Brightness. Just wanted to stay alive and forget.”

“And do you still want to forget?”

He grunted. “No, suppose I don’t. Suppose I sleep a little better now at night, don’t I?”

The door opened and the innkeeper bustled in, holding drinks. Vathah yelped, though Veil turned with a droll expression. “I believe,” she said, “I wanted to not be interrupted.”

“I brought drinks!”

“Which is an interruption,” Veil said, pointing out the door. “If we’re thirsty, we’ll ask.”

The innkeeper grumbled, then backed out the door, carrying his tray. He’s suspicious, Veil thought. He thinks we were up to something with Wit, and wants to find out what.