Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

“It’s because you hate me,” Pattern said softly. “I can die, Shallan. I can go. They will send you another to bond.”

A high-pitched whine started to rise in the room, one Shallan didn’t immediately recognize as coming from the back of her own throat. Pattern’s words were like knives to her side. No, please. Just draw.

Veil. Veil would be fine holding a sword. She didn’t have Shallan’s broken soul, and hadn’t killed her parents. She’d be able to do this.

No. No, what would Adolin do if he returned and found a completely different woman in the room? He couldn’t know of Veil. The lines she sketched, ragged and unrefined from the shaking pencil, quickly took the shape of her own face. But hair in a bun. A poised woman, not as flighty as Shallan, not as unintentionally silly.

A woman who hadn’t been sheltered. A woman hard enough, strong enough, to wield this sword. A woman like … like Jasnah.

Yes, Jasnah’s subtle smile, composure, and self-confidence. Shallan outlined her own face with these ideals, creating a harder version of it. Could … could she be this woman?

I have to be, Shallan thought, drawing in Stormlight from her satchel, then breathing it out in a puff around her. She stood up as the change took hold. Her heartbeat slowed, and she wiped the sweat from her brow, then calmly undid her safehand sleeve, tossed aside the foolish extra pouch she’d tied around her hand inside, then rolled the sleeve back to expose her still-gloved hand.

Good enough. Adolin couldn’t possibly expect her to put on sparring clothing. She pulled her hair back into a bun and fixed it in place with hairspikes from her satchel.

When Adolin returned to the room a moment later, he found a poised, calm woman who wasn’t quite Shallan Davar. Brightness Radiant is her name, she thought. She will go only by title.

Adolin carried two long, thin pieces of metal that somehow could meld to the front of Shardblades and make them less dangerous for use in sparring. Radiant inspected them with a critical eye, then held her hand to the side, summoning Pattern. The Blade formed—a long, thin weapon nearly as tall as she was.

“Pattern,” she said, “can modulate his shape, and will dull his edge to safe levels. I shan’t need such a clunky device.” Indeed, Pattern’s edge rippled, dulling.

“Storms, that’s handy. I’ll still need one though.” Adolin summoned his own Blade, a process that took him ten heartbeats—during which he turned his head, looking at her.

Shallan glanced down, realizing that she’d enhanced her bust in this guise. Not for him, of course. She’d just been making herself look more like Jasnah.

Adolin’s sword finally appeared, with a thicker blade than her own, sinuous along the sharp edge, with delicate crystalline ridges along the back. He put one of the guards on the sword’s edge.

Radiant put one foot forward, Blade lifted high in two hands beside her head.

“Hey,” Adolin said. “That’s not bad.”

“Shallan did spend quite a lot of time drawing you all.”

Adolin nodded thoughtfully. He approached and reached toward her with a thumb and two fingers. She thought he was going to adjust her grip, but instead he pressed his fingers against her collarbone and shoved lightly.

Radiant stumbled backward, almost tripping.

“A stance,” Adolin said, “is about more than just looking great on the battlefield. It’s about footing, center of balance, and control of the fight.”

“Noted. So how do I make it better?”

“I’m trying to decide. Everyone I’ve worked with before had been using a sword since their youth. I’m wondering how Zahel would have changed my training if I’d never even picked up a weapon.”

“From what I’ve heard of him,” Radiant said, “It will depend on whether there are any convenient rooftops nearby to jump off.”

“That’s how he trained with Plate,” Adolin said. “This is Blade. Should I teach you dueling? Or should I teach you how to fight in an army?”

“I shall settle,” Radiant said, “for knowing how to avoid cutting off any of my own appendages, Brightlord Kholin.”

“Brightlord Kholin?”

Too formal. Right. That was how Radiant would act, of course—but she could allow herself some familiarity. Jasnah had done that.

“I was merely,” Radiant said, “attempting to show the respect due a master from his humble pupil.”

Adolin chuckled. “Please. We don’t need that. But here, let’s see what we can do about that stance.…”

Over the next hour, Adolin positioned her hands, her feet, and her arms a dozen times over. He picked a basic stance for her that she could eventually adapt into several of the formal stances—the ones like Windstance, which Adolin said wouldn’t rely on strength or reach as much as mobility and skill.

She wasn’t certain why he’d bothered fetching the metal sparring sleeves, as the two of them didn’t exchange any blows. Other than correcting her stance ten thousand times, he spoke about the art of the duel. How to treat your Shardblade, how to think of an opponent, how to show respect to the institutions and traditions of the duel itself.

Some of it was very practical. Shardblades were dangerous weapons, which explained the demonstrations on how to hold hers, how to walk with it, how to take care not to slice people or things while casually turning.

Other parts of his monologue were more … mystical.

“The Blade is part of you,” Adolin said. “The Blade is more than your tool; it is your life. Respect it. It will not fail you—if you are bested, it is because you failed the sword.”

Radiant stood in what felt like a very stiff pose, Blade held before herself in two hands. She’d only scraped Pattern on the ceiling two or three times; fortunately, most of the rooms in Urithiru had high ceilings.

Adolin gestured for her to perform a simple strike, as they’d been practicing. Radiant raised both arms, tilting the sword, then took a step forward while bringing it down. The entire angle of movement couldn’t have been more than ninety degrees—barely a strike at all.

Adolin smiled. “You’re catching it. A few thousand more of those, and it will start to feel natural. We’ll have to work on your breathing though.”

“My breathing?”

He nodded absently.

“Adolin,” Radiant said, “I assure you, I have been breathing—without fail—my entire life.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s why you’re going to have to unlearn it.”

“How I stand, how I think, how I breathe. I have trouble distinguishing what is actually relevant, and what is part of the subculture and superstition of swordsmen.”

“It’s all relevant,” Adolin said.

“Eating chicken before a match?”

Adolin grinned. “Well, maybe some things are personal quirks. But the swords are part of us.”

“I know mine is part of me,” Radiant said, resting the Blade at her side and setting her gloved safehand on it. “I’ve bonded it. I suspect this is the origin of the tradition among Shardbearers.”

“So academic,” Adolin said, shaking his head. “You need to feel this, Shallan. Live it.”