Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

Other curiosities baffled her. A vial of pale sand. A couple of thick hairpins. A lock of golden hair. The branch of a tree with writing on it she couldn’t read. A silver knife. An odd flower preserved in some kind of solution. There were no plaques to explain these mementos. That chunk of pale pink crystal looked like it might be some kind of gemstone, but why was it so delicate? Bits of it had flaked off in its case, as if simply setting it down had almost crushed it.

She stepped, hesitantly, closer to the back of the room. Smoke from the fire rose, then curled and twisted around something hanging at the top of the hearth. A gemstone?… No, a fabrial. It gathered the smoke as a spool gathered thread. She’d never seen anything like it.

“Do you know the man named Amaram?” asked the scarred man in white.

“No, Brightlord.”

“I am called Mraize,” the man said. “You may use that title for me. And you are?”

“I’m called Veil,” Shallan said, using a name she’d been toying with.

“Very well. Amaram is a Shardbearer in the court of Highprince Sadeas. He is also my current prey.”

Hearing it spoken like that sent a shiver through Shallan. “And what do you wish of me, Mraize?” She tried, but didn’t get the pronunciation of the title quite right. It wasn’t a Vorin term.

“He owns a manor near Sadeas’s palace,” Mraize said. “Inside, Amaram hides secrets. I would know which ones. Tell your mistress to investigate and return to me with information next week on Chachel. She will know what I seek. If she does this, my disappointment with her will fade.”

Sneaking into the manor of a Shardbearer? Storms! Shallan had no idea how she’d accomplish such a thing. She should leave this place, abandon her disguise, and count herself lucky for having escaped alive.

Mraize set down his empty cup of wine, and she saw that his right hand was scarred, the fingers crooked, as if they had been broken and badly reset. There, glistening and golden on Mraize’s middle finger, was a signet ring bearing the same symbol that Jasnah had drawn. The symbol Shallan’s steward had carried, the symbol that Kabsal had tattooed on his body.

There was no backing out. Shallan would do whatever she had to in order to find out what these people knew. About her family, about Jasnah, and about the end of the world itself.

“The task will be done,” Shallan said to Mraize.

“No question of payment?” Mraize asked, amused, removing a dart from his pocket. “Your mistress always asked.”

“Brightlord,” Shallan said, “one does not haggle at the finest winehouses. Your payment will be accepted.”

For the first time since she’d entered, she saw Mraize smile, though he didn’t look toward her. “Do not harm Amaram, little knife,” he warned. “His life belongs to another. Do not alert anyone or bring suspicion. Tyn is to investigate and return. Nothing more.”

He turned around and blew a dart into the wall. Shallan glanced at the other four people by the fire and took Memories of them with a quick blink each. Then—sensing she had been dismissed—she walked to the ladder.

She felt Mraize’s eyes on her back as he raised his blowgun one last time. The trapdoor opened above. Shallan felt the gaze follow her as she climbed up the ladder.

A dart passed just beneath her, between the rungs, and stabbed the wall. Breathing quickly, Shallan left the hidden chamber, entering the dusty upper basement again. The trapdoor closed, shutting her away into the darkness.

Her poise broke, and she scrambled up the steps and out of the building. She stopped outside, breathing deeply. The street outside had grown more busy, not less, with those taverns drawing a crowd. Shallan hurried on her way.

She realized now that she hadn’t had much of a plan in coming to meet with the Ghostbloods. What was she going to do? Get information from them somehow? That would require earning their trust. Mraize didn’t seem the type to trust anyone. How would she find out what he knew about Urithiru? How to call his people off her brothers? How would she—

“Following,” Pattern said.

Shallan pulled up short. “What?”

“People follow,” Pattern said, voice pleasant, as if he had no idea how tense this entire experience had been for Shallan. “You asked me to watch. I watched.”

Of course Mraize would send someone to tail her. Her cold sweat returning, Shallan forced herself to move, not looking over her shoulder. “How many?” she asked Pattern, who had climbed up onto the side of her coat.

“One,” Pattern said. “The person with the mask, though she now wears a black cloak. Should we go speak with her? You are friends now, right?”

“No. I wouldn’t say that.”

“Mmm…” Pattern said. She suspected he was trying to figure out the nature of human interactions. Good luck.

What to do? Shallan doubted she could lose her tail. The woman would have practice with this sort of thing, while Shallan… well, she had a lot of practice reading books and sketching pictures.

Lightweaving, she thought. Can I do something with that? Her disguise was still working—the dark hair trailing down her shoulder proved that. Could she change to a different image overlaying herself?

She drew in Stormlight, and that made her increase her pace. Up ahead, an alley turned between two groups of tenements. Ignoring memories of a similar alleyway in Kharbranth, Shallan turned in to this one with a quick step, then immediately breathed out Stormlight, trying to shape it. Perhaps into the image of a large man, to cover over her coat, and…

And the Stormlight just puffed in front of her, doing nothing. She panicked, but forced herself to keep moving down the alleyway.

It didn’t work. Why didn’t it work? She’d been able to make it work in her rooms!

The only thing she could think that was different was her sketch. In her rooms, she’d drawn a detailed picture. She didn’t have that now.

She reached into her pocket, taking out the sheet of paper with the map sketched on it. The back was blank. She fished in the other pocket for the pencil she’d instinctively put there and tried to draw while walking. Impossible. Salas had almost set, and it was too dark. Besides, she couldn’t do good detail while moving and with nothing firm to back the paper. If she stopped and sketched, would that arouse suspicion? Storms, she was so nervous, she had trouble keeping the pencil straight.

She needed a place where she could hide, crouch down, and do a solid sketch. Like one of those doorway nooks she’d passed in the alleyway.

She started to draw a wall.

That she could do while walking. She turned down a side street, the light from an open tavern spilling across her. She ignored the ruckus of laughter and shouts, though a few of those seemed to be directed at her, and drew a simple stone wall on her sheet.

She had no idea if this would work, but she might as well try. She turned in to another alleyway—almost stumbling over the snoring form of a drunk who was missing his shoes—then took off at a run. A short distance in, she ducked into a doorway recess a couple of feet deep. Breathing out her remaining Stormlight, she imagined the wall she’d drawn covering over the doorway.

Everything went black.

The alley had been dark anyway, but now she couldn’t see anything. No phantom light of the moon, no glow from the torchlit tavern at the end of the alley. Did that mean her image was working? She pushed back against the door behind her, pulling off her hat, trying to make sure none of her poked through the illusory wall. She heard a faint scrape outside, boots on stone, and a sound like clothing brushing against the wall across from her. Then nothing.