Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

Shallan glanced toward the high deck, where she could faintly hear Kaladin making a disturbance. Azure turned and clasped her hands, adopting a far-off look. She seemed to want to be alone, so Shallan trailed back toward where she’d left her things. She settled down and removed the bucket from her sketchpad. The pages fluttered, showing various versions of herself, each one wrong. She kept drawing Veil’s face on Radiant’s body, or vice versa.

She started back into her latest bucket of beads. She found a shirt and a bowl, but the next bead was a fallen tree branch. This brought up memories of the last time she’d dipped into Shadesmar—freezing, near death, on the banks of the ocean.

Why … why hadn’t she tried to Soulcast since then? She’d made excuses, avoided thinking about it. Had focused all her attention on Lightweaving.

She’d ignored Soulcasting. Because she’d failed.

Because she was afraid. Could she invent someone who wasn’t afraid? Someone new, since Veil was broken, and had been since that failure in the Kholinar market …

“Shallan?” Adolin asked, coming over to her. “Are you all right?”

She shook herself. How long had she been sitting there? “I’m fine,” she said. “Just … remembering.”

“Good things or bad?”

“All memories are bad,” she said immediately, then looked away, blushing.

He settled down next to her. Storms, his overt concern was annoying. She didn’t want him worrying about her.

“Shallan?” he asked.

“Shallan will be fine,” she said. “I’ll bring her back in a moment. I just have to recover … her…”

Adolin glanced at the fluttering pages with the different versions of her. He reached out and hugged her, saying nothing. Which turned out to be the right thing to say.

She closed her eyes and tried to pull herself together. “Which one do you like the most?” she finally asked. “Veil is the one who wears the white outfit, but I’m having trouble with her right now. She peeks out sometimes when I don’t want, but then won’t come when I need her. Radiant is the one who practices with the sword. I made her prettier than the others, and you can talk to her about dueling. But some of the time, I’ll have to be someone who can Lightweave. I’m trying to think of who she should be.…”

“Ash’s eyes, Shallan!”

“Shallan’s broken, so I think I’m trying to hide her. Like a cracked vase, where you turn the nice side toward the room, hiding the flaw. I’m not doing it on purpose, but it’s happening, and I don’t know how to stop it.”

He held her.

“No advice?” she asked, numb. “Everyone always seems to have loads.”

“You’re the smart one. What can I say?”

“It’s confusing, being all these people. I feel like I’m presenting different faces all the time. Lying to everyone, because I’m different inside. I … That doesn’t make sense, does it?” She squeezed her eyes shut again. “I’ll pull it back together. I’ll be … someone.”

“I…” He pulled her tight again as the ship rocked. “Shallan, I killed Sadeas.”

She blinked, then pulled back and looked him in the eyes. “What?”

“I killed Sadeas,” Adolin whispered. “We met in the corridors of the tower. He started insulting Father, talking about the terrible things he was going to do to us. And … and I couldn’t listen anymore. Couldn’t stand there and look at his smug red face. So … I attacked him.”

“So all that time we were hunting a killer…”

“It was me. I’m the one the spren copied the first time. I kept thinking about how I was lying to you, to Father, and to everyone. The honorable Adolin Kholin, the consummate duelist. A murderer. And Shallan, I … I don’t think I’m sorry.

“Sadeas was a monster. He repeatedly tried to get us killed. His betrayal caused the deaths of many of my friends. When I formally challenged him to a duel, he wiggled out of it. He was smarter than me. Smarter than Father. He’d have won eventually. So I killed him.”

He pulled her to him and took a deep breath.

Shallan shivered, then whispered, “Good for you.”

“Shallan! You’re a Radiant. You’re not supposed to condone something like this!”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I only know that the world is a better place for the death of Torol Sadeas.”

“Father wouldn’t like it, if he knew.”

“Your father is a great man,” Shallan said, “who is, perhaps, better off not knowing everything. For his own good.”

Adolin breathed in again. With her head pressed to his chest, the air moving in and out of his lungs was audible, and his voice was different. More resonant. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, maybe. In any case, I think I know what it’s like to feel like you’re lying to the world. So maybe if you figure out what to do, you could tell me?”

She leaned into him, listening to his heartbeat, his breathing. She felt his warmth.

“You never did say,” she whispered, “which one you prefer.”

“It’s obvious. I prefer the real you.”

“Which one is that, though?”

“She’s the one I’m talking to right now. You don’t have to hide, Shallan. You don’t have to push it down. Maybe the vase is cracked, but that only means it can show what’s inside. And I like what’s inside.”

So warm. Comfortable. And strikingly unfamiliar. What was this peace? This place without fear?

Noises from above spoiled it. Pulling back, she looked toward the upper deck. “What is the bridgeboy doing up there?”

* * *

“Sir,” the misty sailor spren said in broken Alethi. “Sir! Not. Please, not!”

Kaladin ignored her, looking through the spyglass he’d taken from the chain nearby. He stood on the rear section of the high deck, searching the sky. That Fused had watched them leave Celebrant. The enemy would find them eventually.

Dalinar alone. Surrounded by nine shadows …

Kaladin finally handed the spyglass to the anxious mistspren. The captain of the ship, in a tight uniform that probably would have been uncomfortable on a human, approached and dismissed the sailor, who scuttled away.

“I would prefer,” Captain Notum said, “if you would refrain from upsetting my crew.”

“I would prefer that you let Syl go,” Kaladin snapped, feeling her anxiety through their bond. “As I told you, the Stormfather has condoned what she did. There is no crime.”

The short spren clasped his hands behind his back. Of all the spren they’d interacted with on this side, the honorspren seemed to share the most human mannerisms.

“I could lock you away again,” the captain said. “Or even have you tossed overboard.”

“Yeah? And what would that do to Syl? She told me that losing a bonded Radiant was hard on their spren.”

“True. But she would recover, and it might be for the best. Your relationship with the Ancient Daughter is … inappropriate.”

“It’s not like we eloped.”

“It is worse, as the Nahel bond is far more intimate a relationship. The linking of spirits. This is not a thing that should be done lightly, unsupervised. Besides, the Ancient Daughter is too young.”