Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

He didn’t reply, but instead turned away.

With Syl and the deadeye joining them, that only left one person. Azure lounged by the steps, wearing her breastplate and cloak, arms folded.

“You sure you won’t change your mind?” Shallan asked.

Azure shook her head.

“Azure,” Kaladin said. “I was too harsh earlier. That doesn’t mean I—”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I simply have a different thread to chase, and besides, I left my men to fight these monsters in Kholinar. Doesn’t feel right to do the same again.” She smiled. “Don’t fear for me, Stormblessed. You will have a much better chance if I stay here—as will these sailors. When you boys next meet the swordsman who taught you that morning kata, warn him that I’m looking for him.”

“Zahel?” Adolin said. “You know Zahel?”

“We’re old friends,” she said. “Notum, have your sailors been cutting those bales of cloth into the shapes I requested?”

“Yes,” the captain said. “But I don’t understand—”

“You soon will.” She gave Kaladin a lazy salute. He returned it, sharper. Then she nodded to them and walked up toward the main deck.

The ship crashed through a large wave of beads, sending some through the open cargo deck doors. Sailors with brooms started brushing them back toward the opening.

“Are you going?” the captain said to Shallan. “Every moment you delay increases the danger to us all.” He still wouldn’t look at Syl.

Right, Shallan thought. Well, someone had to start the party. She took Adolin by one hand and Pattern by the other. Kaladin linked hands with Pattern and Syl, and Adolin grabbed his spren. They crowded into the opening into the cargo hold, looking at the glass beads below. Churning, catching the light of a distant sun, sparkling like a million stars …

“All right,” she said. “Jump!”

Shallan threw herself off the ship, joined by the others. She crashed into the beads, which swallowed her. They seemed to slip too easily into them—like before, when she’d fallen into this ocean, it felt like something was pulling her down.

She sank into the beads, which rolled against her skin, overwhelming her senses with thoughts of trees and rocks. She fought the sensations, struggling to keep herself from thrashing too much. She clung to Adolin, but Pattern’s hand was pulled from her grip.

I can’t do this! I can’t let them claim me. I can’t—

They hit the bottom, which was shallow, here near the shore. Then Shallan finally let herself draw in Stormlight. One precious gemstone’s worth. It sustained her, calmed her. She fished in her pocket for the bead she’d picked from the bucket earlier.

When she fed the bead Stormlight, the other beads around her trembled, then pulled back, forming the walls and ceiling of a small room. The Stormlight curling from her skin illuminated the space with a faint glow. Adolin let go of her hand and fell to his knees, coughing and gasping. His deadeye just stood there, as always.

“Damnation,” Adolin said, wheezing. “Drowning with no water. It shouldn’t be so hard, should it? All we had to do was hold our breath.…”

Shallan stepped to the side of the room, listening. Yes … it was almost like she could hear the beads whispering to her beneath their clattering. She plunged her hand through the wall and her fingers brushed cloth. She grabbed hold, and a moment later Kaladin seized her arm and pulled himself into the room made from beads, stumbling and falling to his knees.

He wasn’t glowing.

“You didn’t use a gemstone?” Shallan asked.

“Almost had to,” he said. He took a few deep breaths, then stood up. “But we need to conserve those.” He turned around. “Syl?”

A disturbance at the other side of the chamber announced someone approaching. Whoever it was wasn’t able to get in until Shallan walked over and broke the surface of the bead wall with her hand. Pattern entered and looked around the room, humming happily. “Mmm. A nice pattern, Shallan.”

“Syl,” Kaladin repeated. “We jumped hand-in-hand, but she let go. Where—”

“She’ll be fine,” Shallan said.

“Mmm,” Pattern agreed. “Spren need no air.”

Kaladin took a deep breath, then nodded. He started pacing anyway, so Shallan settled down on the ground to wait, pack in her lap. They each carried a change of clothing, three water jugs, and some of the food Adolin had purchased. Hopefully it would be enough to reach Thaylen City.

Then she’d have to make the Oathgate work.

They waited as long as they dared, hoping the Fused had passed them by, chasing the ship. Finally, Shallan stood up and pointed. “That way.”

“You sure?” Kaladin asked.

“Yes. Even the slope agrees.” She kicked at the obsidian ground, which ran at a gentle incline.

“Right,” Adolin said. “Lock hands.”

They did so and—heart fluttering—Shallan recovered the Stormlight from her shell of a room. Beads came crashing down, enveloping her.

They started up the slope, against the tide of beads. It was more difficult than she’d imagined; the current of the shifting beads seemed determined to hold them back. Still, she had Stormlight to sustain her. They soon reached a place where the ground was too steep to walk on easily. Shallan let go of the men’s hands and scrambled up the incline.

A moment after her head broke the surface, Syl appeared on the bank, reaching down and helping Shallan up the last few feet. Beads rolled off her clothing, clattering against the ground, as the others pulled themselves onto the shore.

“I saw the enemy fly past,” Syl said. “I was hiding by the trees here.”

At her urging, they entered the forest of glass plants before settling down to recover from their escape. Shallan immediately felt herself itching for her sketchpad. These trees! The trunks were translucent; the leaves looked like they were blown from glass in a multitude of colors. Moss drooped from one branch, like melted green glass, strands hanging down in silky lines. When she touched them, they broke off.

Overhead, the clouds rippled with the mother-of-pearl iridescence that marked another highstorm in the real world. Shallan could barely see it through the canopy, but the effect on Pattern and Syl was immediate. They stood up straighter, and Syl’s wan color brightened to a healthy blue-white. Pattern’s head shifted more quickly, spinning through a dozen different cycles in a matter of minutes.

Stormlight still trailed from Shallan’s skin. She’d taken in a rather large amount of it, but hadn’t lost too much. She returned it to the gemstone, a process she didn’t quite understand, but which felt natural at the same time.

Nearby, Syl looked to the southwest with a kind of wistful, far-off expression. “Syl?” Shallan asked.

“There’s a storm that way too…” she whispered, then shook herself and seemed embarrassed.

Kaladin dug out two gemstones. “All right,” he said, “we fly.”

They’d decided to use two gemstones’ worth of Stormlight to fly inward, a gamble to get a head start on their hike—and to get away from the coast. Hopefully the Fused wouldn’t treat the honorspren too harshly. Shallan worried for them, but equally for what would happen if the Fused doubled back to search for her group.