Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

She nodded toward the illusion of herself still standing. “I can’t be her. She’s just another fabrication.”

Both illusions vanished. “I see only one woman here,” Wit said. “And it’s the one who is standing up. Shallan, that has always been you. You just have to admit it. Allow it.” He whispered to her. “It’s all right to hurt.”

He picked up his pack, then unfolded something from inside it. Veil’s hat. He pressed the hat into her palm.

Shockingly, morning light was shining in the doorway. Had she been here all night, huddled in this hole of a room?

“Wit?” she asked. “I … I can’t do it.”

He smiled. “There are certain things I know, Shallan. This is one of them. You can. Find the balance. Accept the pain, but don’t accept that you deserved it.”

Pattern hummed in appreciation of that. But, it wasn’t as easy as Wit said. She took in a breath, and felt … a shiver run through her. Wit collected his things, pack over his shoulder. He smiled, then stepped out into the light.

Shallan released her breath, feeling foolish. She followed Wit out into the light, emerging into the market, which hadn’t quite woken up yet. She didn’t see Wit outside, but that was no surprise. He had a way of being where he shouldn’t, but not being where you’d expect.

Carrying Veil’s hat, she walked the street, feeling odd to be herself in trousers and coat. Red hair, but a safehand glove. Should she hide?

Why? This felt … fine. She walked all the way back to the tailor’s shop and peeked in. Adolin sat at a table inside, bleary-eyed.

He stood upright. “Shallan? We were worried! Vathah said you should have come back!”

“I—”

He embraced her, and she relaxed into him. She felt … better. Not well yet. It was all still there. But something about Wit’s words …

I see only one woman here. The one who is standing up.

Adolin still held her for a time, as if he needed to reassure himself. “I know you’re fine, of course,” he said. “I mean, you’re basically unkillable, right?” Finally, he pulled back—still holding her shoulders—and looked down at her outfit. Should she explain?

“Nice,” Adolin said. “Shallan, that’s sharp. The red on white.” He stepped back, nodding. “Did Yokska make that for you? Let me see the hat on you.”

Oh, Adolin, she thought, pulling on the hat.

“The jacket is a hair too loose,” Adolin said. “But the style is a really good match. Bold. Crisp.” He cocked his head. “Would look better with a sword at your waist. Maybe…” He trailed off. “Do you hear that?”

She turned, frowning. It sounded like marching. “A parade this early?”

They looked out at the street and found Kaladin approaching along with what seemed to be an army of five or six hundred men, wearing the uniforms of the Wall Guard.

Adolin sighed softly. “Of course. He’s probably their leader now or something. Storming bridgeboy.”

Kaladin marched his men right up to the front of the tailor’s shop. She and Adolin stepped out to meet him, and she heard Elhokar scrambling down the steps inside, shouting at what he’d apparently seen out the window.

Kaladin was speaking softly with a woman in armor, helm under her arm, face crossed by a pair of scars. Highmarshal Azure was younger than Shallan had expected.

The soldiers grew hushed as they saw Adolin, then the king, who was already dressed.

“So that’s what you meant,” Azure said to Kaladin.

“Stormblessed?” Elhokar asked. “What is this?”

“You’ve been wanting an army to attack the palace, Your Majesty,” Kaladin said. “Well, we’re ready.”

As the duly appointed keepers of the perfect gems, we of the Elsecallers have taken the burden of protecting the ruby nicknamed Honor’s Drop. Let it be recorded.

—From drawer 20-10, zircon

Adolin Kholin washed his face with a splash of cold water, then rubbed it clean with a washrag. He was tired—he’d spent much of the night fretting about Shallan’s failure to return. Below, in the shop proper, he could hear the others stomping about as they made last-minute preparations for the assault.

An assault on the palace, his home for many years. He took a deep breath.

Something was wrong. He fidgeted, checking his belt knife, the emergency bandages in his pocket. He checked the glyphward Shallan had made him at his request—determination—wrapped around his forearm. Then he finally realized what was bothering him.

He summoned his Shardblade.

It was thick at the base, as wide as a man’s palm, and the front waved like the ripples of a moving eel. The back had small crystalline protrusions growing out of it. No sheath could hold a weapon like this, and no mortal sword could imitate it—not without growing unusably heavy. You knew a Shardblade when you saw one. That was the point.

Adolin held the weapon before him in the lavatory, looking at his reflection in the metal. “I don’t have my mother’s necklace,” he said, “or any of the other traditions I used to follow. I never really needed those. I’ve only ever needed you.”

He took a deep breath. “I guess … I guess you used to be alive. The others say they can hear your screaming if they touch you. That you’re dead, yet somehow still in pain. I’m sorry. I can’t do anything about that, but … thank you. Thank you for assisting me all these years. And if it helps, I’m going to use you to do something good today. I’ll try to always use you that way.”

He felt better as he dismissed the Blade. Of course, he carried another weapon: his belt knife, long and thin. A weapon intended for stabbing armored men.

It had felt so satisfying to shove it through Sadeas’s eye. He still didn’t know whether to feel ashamed or proud. He sighed, checked himself in the mirror, then made another quick decision.

When he walked down the steps to the main room a short time later, he was wearing his Kholin uniform. His skin missed the softer silk and better form of the tailored outfit, but he found he walked taller in this one. Despite the fact that a part of him, deep down, worried he didn’t deserve to bear his father’s glyphs any longer.

He nodded to Elhokar, who was speaking with the strange woman known as Highmarshal Azure. “My scouts have been driven back,” she said. “But they saw enough, Your Majesty. The Voidbringer army is here, in its strength. They’ll attack today or tomorrow for certain.”

“Well,” Elhokar said. “I suppose I understand why you did what you had to in taking control of the Guard. I can’t very well have you hanged as a usurper. Good work, Highmarshal.”

“I … appreciate that?”

Shallan, Kaladin, Skar, and Drehy were standing with a palace map. They needed to memorize the layout. Adolin and Elhokar, of course, already knew it. Shallan had chosen not to change out of the fetching white outfit she’d been wearing earlier. It would be more functional for an assault than a skirt. Storms, there was something about a woman in trousers and a coat.

Elhokar left Azure to take reports from some of her men. Nearby in the room, a few lighteyed men saluted him—the highlords he and Adolin had revealed themselves to the night before. All they’d needed to do was walk away from the spheres powering their illusions, and their true faces had become manifest.