Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive 2)

“I suppose,” he said, “we have to ride up top.”

“Thank you for offering,” Shallan said, then pulled down the window shade. Outside, Gaz chuckled again. The two climbed into the guard positions on the top back of the carriage, and En joined the coachman up front. It was a true proper coach, pulled by horses and everything. Shallan had originally felt bad about asking to use it, but Palona had laughed. “Take the thing whenever you want! I have my own, and if Turi’s coach is gone, he’ll have an excuse to not go when people ask him to visit. He loves that.”

Shallan closed the other window shade as the coachman started the vehicle rolling, then got out her sketchbook. Pattern waited on the first blank white page. “We are going to find out,” Shallan whispered, “just what we can do.”

“Exciting!” Pattern said.

She got out her pouch of spheres and breathed in some of the Stormlight. Then, she puffed it out in front of her, trying to shape it, meld it.

Nothing.

Next, she tried holding a very specific image in her head—herself, with one small change: black hair instead of red. She puffed out the Stormlight, and this time it shifted around her and hung for a moment. Then it too vanished.

“This is silly,” Shallan said softly, Stormlight trailing from her lips. She did a quick sketch of herself with dark hair. “What does it matter if I draw it first or not? The pencils don’t even show color.”

“It shouldn’t matter,” Pattern said. “But it matters to you. I do not know why.”

She finished the sketch. It was very simple—it didn’t show her features, only really her hair, everything else indistinct. Yet when she used Stormlight this time, the image took and her hair darkened to black.

Shallan sighed, Stormlight leaking from her lips. “So, how do I make the illusion vanish?”

“Stop feeding it.”

“How?”

“I am supposed to know this?” Pattern asked. “You are the expert on feeding.”

Shallan gathered all of her spheres—several were now dun—and set them on the seat across from her, out of reach. That wasn’t far enough, for as her Stormlight ran out, she breathed in using instincts she hadn’t realized she had. Light streamed from across the carriage and into her.

“I’m quite good at that,” Shallan said sourly, “considering how short a time I’ve been doing it.”

“Short time?” Pattern said. “But we first…”

She stopped listening until he was done.

“I really need to find another copy of Words of Radiance,” Shallan said, starting another sketch. “Maybe it talks about how to dismiss the illusions.”

She continued to work on her next sketch, a picture of Sebarial. She’d taken a Memory of him while dining the night before, just after returning from a session scouting Amaram’s compound. She wanted to get the details of this sketch right for her collection, so it took some time. Fortunately, the level roadway meant no big bumps. It wasn’t ideal, but she seemed to have less and less time these days, with her research, her work for Sebarial, infiltrating the Ghostbloods, and meetings with Adolin Kholin. She’d had so much more time when she was younger. She couldn’t help thinking she’d wasted much of it.

She let the work consume her. The familiar sound of pencil on paper, the focus of creation. Beauty was out there, all around. To create art was not to capture it, but to participate in it.

When she finished, a glance out the window showed them approaching the Pinnacle. She held up the sketch, studying it, then nodded to herself. Satisfactory.

Next she tried using Stormlight to create an image. She breathed out a lot of it, and it formed immediately, snapping into an image of Sebarial sitting across from her in the carriage. He held the same position as he did in her sketch, hands out to slice food that was not included in her image.

Shallan smiled. The detail was perfect. Folds in skin, individual hairs. She hadn’t drawn those—no sketch could capture all the hairs on a head, all the pores in skin. Her image had these things, so it didn’t create exactly what she drew, but the drawing was a focus. A model that the image built from.

“Mmm,” Pattern said, sounding satisfied. “One of your most truthful lies. Wonderful.”

“He doesn’t move,” Shallan said. “Nobody would mistake this for something living, never mind the unnatural pose. The eyes are lifeless; the chest doesn’t rise and fall with breath. The muscles don’t shift. It’s detailed—but like a statue can be detailed yet still dead.”

“A statue of light.”

“I didn’t say it isn’t impressive,” Shallan said. “But the images will be much harder to use unless I can give them life.” How strange that she should feel that her sketches were alive, but this thing—which was so much more realistic—was dead.

She reached out to wave her hand through the image. If she touched it slowly, the disturbance was minor. Waving her hand disturbed it like smoke. She noticed something else. While her hand was in the image…

Yes. She sucked in a breath and the image dissolved to glowing smoke, drawn into her skin. She could reclaim Stormlight from the illusion. One question answered, she thought, settling back and making notes about the experience in the back of the notebook.

She began packing up her satchel as the carriage arrived at the Outer Market, where Adolin would be waiting for her. They’d gone on their promised walk the day before, and she felt things were going well. But she also knew she needed to impress him. Her efforts with Highlady Navani had not been fruitful so far, and she really did need an alliance with the Kholin house.

That made her consider. Her hair had dried, but she tended to keep it long and straight down her back, with only its natural curl to give it body. The Alethi women favored intricate braids instead.

Her skin was pale and dusted lightly with freckles, and her body was nowhere near curvaceous enough to inspire envy. She could change all of this with an illusion. An augmentation. Since Adolin had seen her without, she couldn’t change anything dramatic—but she could enhance herself. It would be like wearing makeup.

She hesitated. If Adolin came to agree to the marriage, would it be because of her, or the lies?

Foolish girl, Shallan thought. You were willing to change your appearance to get Vathah to follow you and to gain a place with Sebarial, but not now?

But capturing Adolin’s attention with illusions would lead her down a difficult path. She couldn’t wear an illusion always, could she? In married life? Better to see what she could do without one, she thought as she climbed out of the carriage. She’d have to rely, instead, upon her feminine wiles.

She wished she knew if she had any.

48. No More Weakness

THREE YEARS AGO

“These are really good, Shallan,” Balat said, leafing through pages of her sketches. The two of them sat in the gardens, accompanied by Wikim, who sat on the ground tossing a cloth-wrapped ball for his axehound Sakisa to catch.

“My anatomy is off,” Shallan said with a blush. “I can’t get the proportions right.” She needed models to pose for her so she could work on that.

“You’re better than Mother ever was,” Balat said, flipping to another page, where she had sketched Balat on the sparring grounds with his swordsmanship tutor. He tipped it toward Wikim, who raised an eyebrow.