What she found, with barely any effort, left her feeling embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just … I’m dealing with some difficult things.”
He nodded and didn’t push her. Wonderful man.
“Veil is really coming around to you lately,” she noted. “And Radiant always liked you.”
“That’s great,” he said. “I still worry you’ve been … odd these last few weeks. And uncommonly unlike yourself.”
“Veil is part of my self, Adolin. So is Radiant. We have a balance.”
“Are you sure that’s the right word?”
She didn’t particularly want to argue. She’d been Veil more lately because there was more for Veil to do. In Urithiru, she was Shallan or Radiant a much larger portion of the time.
Nevertheless, it was good to … let go. Maybe she ought to break out the last of the wine and force some relaxation into their stomach. The way Adolin had been pacing so much, he could probably use a nice diverting evening in her arms.
“I feel like he’s watching me,” Adolin said, gazing up at the majestic starspren.
“That’s because it is,” Shallan said. “Spren notice when they’re being watched. Recent scholarly reports indicate spren will change based on direct individual perception. Like, you can be in another room and think about the spren, and it will respond.”
“Now that’s bizarre,” Adolin said.
“And somehow normal at the same time,” Shallan said.
“Like you?” Adolin said.
She glanced at him and caught a grin on his face, then found herself smiling in return. “Like every person, I think. We’re all strangely normal. Or normally strange.”
“Not my father.”
“Oh, especially your father. Do you think it’s normal for a person to look as if their parentage involved an anvil and an uncommonly stern stormcloud?”
“So … what are you saying about me?”
“That you take after your mother, obviously.” She drew a bold stroke, finishing off her sketch. She sprayed lacquer on it, then set it aside and started another one immediately. This was not a one-sketch experience.
As soon as she put charcoal to paper, however, she found herself drawing Adolin as he stared up at the sky.
“How in the world,” she said, “did I get lucky enough to grab you, Adolin Kholin? Someone should have snatched you up years ago.”
He grinned. “They tried. I ruined it quite spectacularly each time.”
“At least your first crush didn’t try to kill you.”
“I recall you saying he tried to avoid killing you, but failed. Something about jam.”
“Mmm…” she said. “I’m sick enough of rations, I’d probably eat some jam on Thaylen bread even if it was poisoned.”
“My first crush didn’t try to kill me,” Adolin said, “but I probably could have died of embarrassment from the interaction.”
She leaned forward immediately, opening her eyes wide. “Oooh…”
He glanced at her, then blushed. “Storms. I really shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Can’t stop now,” she said, poking him in the side with her foot. “Go on. Talk.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Tough.” She poked him again. “I can keep going. I’m a storming Knight Radiant. I have legendary endurance for annoying people. If I have to use up every last gemstone on this fight, I’ll—”
“Ow,” he said. “Look, it’s not even that good a story. There was this girl, Idani, a cousin to the Khal boys. She was … uncommonly well put together for a fourteen-year-old. She was a bit older than I was, and let’s just say she understood the world better than I did.”
Shallan cocked her head. “What?”
“Well, she kept talking about how she loved swords. And how I was supposed to have a great sword. And how she wanted to see me wield my sword. And…”
“And what?”
“I bought her a sword,” he said, shrugging. “As a gift.”
“Oh Adolin.”
“I was fourteen!” he said. “What fourteen-year-old understands innuendo? I thought she actually wanted a sword!”
“What is a girl going to do with a sword? A real one, mind you. This conversation could quickly get off track.…”
“I don’t know!” he said. “I figured she thought they were nifty. Who doesn’t think they’re nifty?” He rubbed his side, where Shallan had been poking him. “It was a really nifty sword, too. Classic antique ulius, the style used in lighteyed challenges of honor during the Sunmaker’s reign. Had a little nick in it from the Velinar/Gulastis duel.”
“I assume you told poor Idani about all this, at length?”
“I went on for like an hour,” Adolin admitted. “She finally grew bored and drifted off. Didn’t even take her storming gift.” He glanced at Shallan, then grinned. “I got to keep the sword though. Still have it.”
“Did you ever figure it out? What she was saying?”
“Eventually,” he said. “But by then … things had changed.”
She cocked her head, pausing in her sketch.
“I overheard her making fun of Renarin to her friends,” Adolin said. “She said some … nasty things. That ruined something in me. She was gorgeous, Shallan. At the time, my little mind figured she must be the most divine thing that ever walked the land.
“Then I heard her saying those things. I don’t think I’d ever realized, until that moment, that a person could be beautiful and ugly at the same time. When you’re a teenage boy, you want the beautiful people to be truly beautiful. It’s hard to see otherwise, stupid as it sounds. I guess I owe her for that.”
“It’s a lesson a lot of people never learn, Adolin.”
“I suppose. Thing is, there’s more to it. She was newly moved into the city, and was desperate to find a place. So her joking about Renarin was crass, yes, but she was trying so hard to find acceptance. I don’t see an evil child in her now. The others were unkind to Renarin, and she figured she could bond by doing likewise.”
“Doesn’t excuse that kind of behavior.”
“You used to think he was weird too,” Adolin noted.
“Maybe,” Shallan said, as it was uncomfortably true. “But I came around, and I never gossiped about him. It merely took you showing me that while he was weird, it was the good kind. As an expert on weird, I’m uniquely qualified to know.” She returned to her sketch of Adolin, focusing on his eyes. There was so much in his eyes.
“I don’t excuse the things Idani said,” Adolin said. “I simply feel it’s important to recognize that she might have had reasons. We all have reasons why we fail to live up to what we should be.…”
Shallan froze, pencil hovering above the sketchbook page. So. That was what he was about. “You don’t have to live up to what your father wants you to be, Adolin.”
“No one ever accomplished anything by being content with who they were, Shallan,” Adolin said. “We accomplish great things by reaching toward who we could become.”