Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

“Time to move these meetings to another location, eh, Vathah?” She looked back at the table.

And found someone else sitting there.

Vathah was gone, replaced by a bald man with thick knuckles and a well-kept smock. Shallan glanced at the picture on the table, then at the drained sphere beside it, then back at Vathah.

“Nice,” she said. “But you forgot to do the back of the head, the part not in the drawing.”

“What?” Vathah asked, frowning.

She showed him the hand mirror.

“Why’d you put his face on me?”

“I didn’t,” Veil said, standing. “You panicked and this happened.”

Vathah prodded at his face, still looking in the mirror, confused.

“I’ll bet the first few times are always accidents,” Veil said. She tucked the mirror away. “Gather this stuff up. We’ll do the mission as planned, but tomorrow you’re relieved of infiltration duty. I’ll want you practicing with your Stormlight instead.”

“Practicing…” He finally seemed to get it, his brown eyes opening widely. “Brightness! I’m no storming Radiant.”

“Of course not. You’re probably a squire—I think most orders had them. You might become something more. I think Shallan was making illusions off and on for years before she said the oaths. But then, it’s all kind of muddled in her head. I had my sword when I was very young, and…”

She took a deep breath. Fortunately, Veil hadn’t lived through those days.

Pattern hummed in warning.

“Brightness…” Vathah said. “Veil, you really think that I…”

Storms, he seemed like he was going to cry.

She patted him on the shoulder. “We don’t have time to waste. The cult will be waiting for me in four hours, and expect a nice payment of food. You going to be all right?”

“Sure, sure,” he said. The illusion finally dropped, and the image of Vathah himself so emotional was even more striking. “I can do this. Let’s go steal from some rich people and give to some crazy people instead.”

A coalition has been formed among scholar Radiants. Our goal is to deny the enemy their supply of Voidlight; this will prevent their continuing transformations, and give us an edge in combat.

—From drawer 30-20, second emerald

Veil had exposed herself.

That nagged at her as the wagon—filled with spoils from the robbery—rolled toward the appointed meeting place with the cult. She nestled in the back, against a bag of grain, feet up on a paper-wrapped haunch of cured pork.

“Swiftspren” was Veil, as she was the one who had been seen distributing the food. Therefore, to enter this revel, she would have to go as herself.

The enemy knew what she looked like. Should she have created a new persona, a false face, to not expose Veil?

But Veil is a false face, a part of her said. You could always abandon her.

She strangled that part of her, smothered it deep. Veil was too real, too vital, to abandon. Shallan would be easier.

First moon was up by the time they reached the steps to the Oathgate platform. Vathah rolled the wagon into place, and Veil hopped off, coat rippling around her. Two guards here were dressed as flamespren, with golden and red tassels. Their muscular builds, and those two spears set near the steps, hinted these men might have been soldiers before joining the cult.

A woman bustled between them, wearing a flat white mask with eyeholes but no mouth or other features. Veil narrowed her eyes; the mask reminded her of Iyatil, Mraize’s master in the Ghostbloods. But it was a very different shape.

“You were told to come alone, Swiftspren,” the woman said.

“You expected me to unload all of this on my own?” Veil waved to the back of the wagon.

“We can handle it,” the woman said smoothly, stepping over as one of the guards held up a torch—not a sphere lamp—and the other lowered the wagon’s tailgate. “Mmmm…”

Veil turned sharply. That hum …

The guards started unloading the food.

“You can take all but the two bags marked with red,” Veil said, pointing. “I need those for my rounds visiting the poor.”

“I wasn’t aware this was a negotiation,” the cultist said. “You asked for this. You’ve been leaving whispers through the city that you want to join the revel.”

Wit’s work, apparently. She’d have to thank him.

“Why are you here?” the cultist asked, sounding curious. “What is it you want, Swiftspren, so-called hero of the markets?”

“I just … keep hearing this voice. It says that this is the end, that I should give in to it. Embrace the time of spren.” She turned toward the Oathgate platform; an orange glow was rising from the top. “The answers are up there, aren’t they?”

From the corner of her eye, she saw the three nod to one another. She’d passed some kind of test.

“You may climb the steps to enlightenment,” the cultist in white told her. “Your guide will meet you at the top.”

She tossed her hat to Vathah and met his eyes. Once the unloading was through, he’d pull away and set up a few streets farther off, where he could watch the edge of the Oathgate platform. If she had trouble, she would throw herself off, counting on Stormlight to heal her after falling.

She started up the steps.

* * *

Kaladin normally liked the feeling of the city after a storm. Clean and fresh, washed of grime and refuse.

He’d done evening patrol, checking over their beat to see everything was all right following the storm. Now he stood on the top of the wall, waiting for the rest of his squad, who were still stowing their equipment. The sun had barely set, and it was time for dinner.

Below, he picked out buildings newly scarred from lightning strikes. A pod of corrupted windspren danced past, trailing intense red light. Even the smell of the air was wrong somehow. Moldy and sodden.

Syl sat quietly on his shoulder until Beard and the others piled into the stairwell. He finally joined them, walking down below to the barrack, where both platoons—his and the one they shared the space with—were gathering for dinner. Roughly twenty of the men from the other platoon would be on wall duty tonight, but everyone else was present.

Not long after Kaladin arrived, the two platoon captains called their men to muster. Kaladin fell into line between Beard and Ved, and together they saluted as Azure stepped into the doorway. She was arrayed for battle as always, with her breastplate, chain, and cloak.

Tonight, she decided to do a formal inspection. Kaladin held attention with the others as she walked down their lines and commented quietly to the two captains. She looked over a few swords, and asked several of the men if they needed anything. Kaladin felt as if he’d stood in similar lines a hundred times, sweating and hoping that the general would find everything in order.

They always did. This wasn’t the type of inspection that was intended to actually find problems—this was a chance for the men to show off for their highmarshal. They swelled as she told them they “just might be the finest platoons of fighting men I’ve ever had the privilege of leading.” Kaladin was certain he’d heard those exact words from Amaram.

Trite or not, the words inspired the men. They gave the highmarshal shouts of approval once they were given leave to break ranks. Perhaps the number of “finest platoons” in the army went up during times of war, when everyone craved a morale boost.