Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

He caught the hand. “No need. I’ll keep my hair down over it.”

“It peeks out,” she said.

“Then let it. In a city full of refugees, nobody is going to care.”

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t push. He was probably right. In that uniform, he’d probably just be taken for a slave someone bought, then put in their house guard. Even though the shash brand was odd.

The king went to prepare his letter, and Adolin and Kaladin stayed in the showroom to talk quietly about the Wall Guard. Shallan headed up the steps. Her own room was a smaller one on the second floor.

Inside were Red, and Vathah, and Ishnah the assistant spy, chatting quietly.

“How much did you eavesdrop on?” Shallan asked them.

“Not much,” Vathah said, thumbing over his shoulder. “We were too busy watching Ishnah ransack the tailor’s bedroom to see if she was hiding anything.”

“Tell me you didn’t make a mess.”

“No mess,” Ishnah promised. “And nothing to report either. The woman might actually be as boring as she seems. The boys did learn some good search procedures though.”

Shallan walked past the small guest bed and looked out the window at a daunting view down a city street. So many homes, so many people. Intimidating.

Fortunately, Veil wouldn’t see it that way. There was only one problem.

I can’t work with this team, she thought, without them eventually asking questions. This Kholinar mission would bring it to a head, as Veil hadn’t flown with them.

She’d been dreading this. And … kind of … anticipating it? “I need to tell them,” she whispered.

“Mmm,” Pattern said. “It’s good. Progress.”

Rather, she’d been backed into a corner. Still, it had to be done eventually. She walked to her pack and removed a white coat and a hat, which folded up on its side. “Some privacy, boys,” she said to Vathah and Red. “Veil needs to get dressed.”

They looked from the coat to Shallan, then back. Red slapped the side of his head and laughed. “You’re kidding. Well, I feel like an idiot.”

She’d expected Vathah to feel betrayed. Instead he nodded—as if this made perfect sense. He saluted her with one finger, then the two men retreated.

Ishnah lingered. Shallan had—after some debate—decided to bring the woman. Mraize had vetted her, and in the end, Veil needed the training.

“You don’t look surprised about this,” Shallan said as she started changing.

“I was suspicious when Veil … when you told me to go on this mission,” she said. “Then I saw the illusions, and guessed.” She paused. “I had it reversed. I thought Brightness Shallan was the persona. But the spy—that’s the false identity.”

“Wrong,” Shallan said. “They’re both equally false.” Once dressed, she flipped through her sketchbook and found a drawing of Lyn in her scouting uniform. Perfect. “Go tell Brightlord Kaladin I’m already out and exploring, and that he should meet me in about an hour.”

She climbed out the window and dropped one story to the ground, relying on her Stormlight to keep her legs from breaking. Then she struck off down the street.

I returned to the tower to find squabbling children, instead of proud knights. That’s why I hate this place. I’m going to go chart the hidden undersea caverns of Aimia; find my maps in Akinah.

—From drawer 16-16, amethyst

Veil enjoyed being in a proper city again, even if it was half feral.

Most cities lived on the very edge of civilization. Everyone talked about towns and villages out in the middle of nowhere as if they were uncivilized, but she’d found people in those places pleasant, even-tempered, and comfortable with their quieter way of life.

Not in cities. Cities balanced on the edge of sustainability, always one step from starvation. When you pressed so many people together, their cultures, ideas, and stenches rubbed off on one another. The result wasn’t civilization. It was contained chaos, pressurized, bottled up so it couldn’t escape.

There was a tension to cities. You could breathe it, feel it in every step. Veil loved it.

Once a few streets from the tailor’s shop, she pulled down the brim of her hat and held up a page from her sketchbook as if consulting a map. This covered her as she breathed out Stormlight, transforming her features and hair to match those of Veil, instead of Shallan.

No spren came, screaming to warn of what she’d done. So Lightweaving was different from using fabrials. She’d been fairly certain it was safe, as they’d worn disguises into the city, but she’d wanted to be away from the tailor’s shop in case.

Veil strolled down the thoroughfare, long coat rippling around her calves. She decided immediately that she liked Kholinar. She liked how the city rolled across its hills, a lumpy blanket of buildings. She liked how it smelled of Horneater spices in one gust of wind, then of Alethi steamed crabs in the next. Admittedly, those probably weren’t proper crabs today, but cremlings.

That part she didn’t like. These poor people. Even in this more affluent area, she could barely walk a quarter block without having to weave around huddles of people. The midblock courtyards were clogged with what had probably been normal villagers not long ago, but who were now impoverished wretches.

There wasn’t much wheeled traffic on the streets. Some palanquins ringed by guards. No carriages. Life, however, did not stop for a war—or even for a second Aharietiam. There was water to draw, clothes to clean. Women’s work mostly, as she could see from the large groups of men standing around. With no one really in charge in the city, who would pay men to work forges? To clean streets or chip crem? Even worse, in a city this size, much of the menial labor would have been done by parshmen. Nobody would be eager to leap in to take their place.

The bridgeboy is right though, Veil thought, loitering at an intersection. The city is still being fed. A place like Kholinar could consume itself quickly, once the food or water ran out.

No, cities were not civilized places. No more than a whitespine was domesticated just because it had a collar around its neck.

A small group of cultists dressed as rotspren limped down the street, the wet red paint on their clothing evocative of blood. Shallan considered these people extreme and alarming, probably crazy, but Veil wasn’t convinced. They were too theatrical—and there were too many of them—for all to be truly deranged. This was a fad. A way of dealing with unexpected events and giving some shape to lives that had been turned upside down.

That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. A group of people all trying to impress one another was always more dangerous than the lone psychopath. So she gave the cultists a wide berth.

Over the next hour, Veil surveyed the city while wending her way in the general direction of the palace. The area with the tailor’s shop was the most normal. It had a good functioning market, which she intended to investigate further when not pressed for time. It had parks, and though these had been appropriated by the crowds, the people in them were lively. Family groups—even communities transplanted from outer villages—doing the best they could.

She passed bunkerlike mansions of the wealthy. Several had been ransacked: gates broken down, window shutters cracked, grounds draped with blankets or shanties. Some lighteyed families, it seemed, hadn’t maintained enough guards to withstand the riots.