Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

The whole city was depending on her, but she hadn’t even been able to save a little beggar boy. As she curled up on the floor, Grund’s death seemed a shadow of everything else, of her good intentions turned arrogant.

Everywhere she trod, death haunted her. Every face she wore was a lie to pretend she could stop it.

Couldn’t she be somebody who didn’t hurt, just once?

Light pushed shadows before it, long and slender. She blinked, momentarily transfixed. How many days had it been since she’d seen light? A figure stepped into the common room outside her little hole of a chamber. She was still in the long room Muri had lived in.

She sniffled softly.

The newcomer brought his light to her doorway, then carefully stepped inside and settled down across from her, his back against the wall. The room was narrow enough that his legs stretched out and touched the wall beside her. She had hers drawn up, knees against her chest, head resting on them.

Wit didn’t speak. He put his sphere on the floor, and let her have the silence.

“I should have known better,” she finally whispered.

“Perhaps,” Wit said.

“Giving out so much food only drew predators. Foolish. I should have focused on the Oathgate.”

“Again, perhaps.”

“It’s so hard, Wit. When I wear Veil’s face … I … I have to think like her. Seeing the larger scope grows difficult when she takes over. And I want her to take over, because she’s not me.”

“The thieves who killed that child have been seen to,” Wit said.

She looked up at him.

“When some of the men in the market heard what had happened,” Wit continued, “they finally formed the militia they’d been talking about. They rushed the Grips, forcing them to give up the murderer, then disperse. I apologize for not acting sooner; I had been distracted by other tasks. You’ll be pleased to know that some of the food you gave away was still in their base.”

“Was it worth that boy’s life?” Shallan whispered.

“I cannot judge the worth of a life. I would not dare to attempt it.”

“Muri said it would be better if I were dead.”

“As I lack the experience to decide the worth of a life, I sincerely doubt that she has somehow obtained it. You tried to help the people of the market. You mostly failed. This is life. The longer you live, the more you fail. Failure is the mark of a life well lived. In turn, the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone. Trust me, I’ve practiced.”

She sniffled, looking away. “I have to become Veil to escape the memories, but I don’t have the experience that she pretends to have. I haven’t lived her life.”

“No,” Wit said softly. “You’ve lived a harsher one, haven’t you?”

“Yet still, somehow, a naive one.” She drew in a deep, ragged breath. She had to stop this. She knew she had to get over the tantrum and go back to the tailor’s shop.

She’d do it. She’d shove all this into the back of her mind, with everything else she ignored. They could all fester together.

Wit settled back. “Have you heard the story of the Girl Who Looked Up?”

Shallan didn’t reply.

“It’s a story from long ago,” Wit said. He cupped his hands around the sphere on the floor. “Things were different in that time. A wall kept out the storms, but everyone ignored it. All but one girl, who looked up one day, and contemplated it.”

“Why is there a wall?” Shallan whispered.

“Oh, so you do know it? Good.” He leaned down, blowing at the crem dust on the floor. It swirled up, making a figure of a girl. It gave the brief impression of her standing before a wall, but then disintegrated back into dust. He tried again, and it swirled a little higher this time, but still fell back to dust.

“A little help?” he asked. He pushed a bag of spheres across the ground toward Shallan.

Shallan sighed, then picked up the bag and drew in the Stormlight. It started to rage within her, demanding to be used, so she stood up and breathed out, Weaving it into an illusion she’d done once before. A pristine village, and a young girl standing and looking upward, toward an impossibly tall wall in the distance.

The illusion made the room seem to vanish. Somehow, Shallan painted the walls and ceiling in precisely the right way, making them disappear into the landscape—become part of it. She hadn’t made them invisible; they were merely covered up in a way that made it seem Shallan and Wit were standing in another place.

This was … this was more than she’d ever done before. But was she really doing it? Shallan shook her head and stepped up beside the girl, who wore long scarves.

Wit stepped up on the other side. “Hmmm,” he said. “Not bad. But it’s not dark enough.”

“What?”

“I thought you knew the story,” Wit said, tapping the air. The color and light bled from her illusion, leaving them standing in the darkness of night, lit only by a frail set of stars. The wall was an enormous blot before them. “In these days, there was no light.”

“No light…”

“Of course, even without light, people still had to live, didn’t they? That’s what people do. I hasten to guess it’s the first thing they learn how to do. So they lived in the darkness, farmed in the darkness, ate in the darkness.” He waved behind him. People stumbled about in the village, feeling their way to different activities, barely able to see by the starlight.

In this context, strange though it seemed, some pieces of the story as she’d told it made sense. When the girl went up to people and asked, “Why is there a wall?” it was obvious why they found it so easy to ignore.

The illusion followed Wit’s words as the girl in the scarves asked several people about the wall. Don’t go beyond it, or you shall die.

“And so,” Wit said, “she decided that the only way she’d find answers would be to climb the wall herself.” He glanced at Shallan. “Was she stupid or bold?”

“How should I know?”

“Wrong answer. She was both.”

“It wasn’t stupid. If nobody asked questions, then we would never learn anything.”

“What of the wisdom of her elders?”

“They offered no explanation for why she shouldn’t ask about the wall! No rationalization, no justification. There’s a difference between listening to your elders and just being as frightened as everyone else.”

Wit smiled, the sphere in his hand lighting his face. “Funny, isn’t it, how so many of our stories start the same way, but have opposing endings? In half, the child ignores her parents, wanders out into the woods, and gets eaten. In the other half she discovers great wonders. There aren’t many stories about the kids who say, ‘Yes, I shall not go into the forest. I’m glad my parents explained that is where the monsters live.’ ”

“Is that what you’re trying to teach me, then?” Shallan snapped. “The fine distinction between choosing for yourself and ignoring good advice?”

“I’m a terrible teacher.” He waved his hand as the girl reached the wall after a long hike. She started to climb. “Fortunately, I am an artist, and not a teacher.”