Adolin ground his teeth. “I do know what happened between Kaladin and Syl. It was a difficult time for all of us, a point of transition. Kaladin didn’t know he was breaking his oaths—he was merely having a difficult time navigating conflicting loyalties.”

“So you’re ignorant and dangerous,” the spren in the second row said. “Your Radiants barely know what they’re doing! You could kill your spren by accident!”

Kelek waved, and the spren was grabbed by attendants and carried up and out of the forum. But Adolin saw this for what it was. A coordinated attack, and the ejection a calculated risk to get the words out.

“We’re not killing our spren,” Adolin said to the crowd. “These incidents are isolated, and we don’t have proper context to discuss them.”

“Is that so?” yet another honorspren said. “You can swear that none of your Radiants have killed their spren?”

“Yes! None of them have. They…” He trailed off.

Damnation. He’d met one, hadn’t he? Killed recently—that Cryptic in the market.

“They what?” the spren demanded.

If he answered the question truthfully, it could be the end. Adolin took a deep breath, and did what Blended had warned him against. He engaged the audience. “I could answer, but you don’t care, do you? You obviously planned together how to attack me today. This is an ambush. You don’t care about honor, and you don’t care what I have to say. You simply want to throw things at me.”

He stepped forward and lifted his hands to the sides. “All right. Go ahead! But know this! You say that spren don’t lie, that spren are not changeable like men? Next time you try to pretend that is true, remember this day! Remember how you lied when you said I’d have a fair trial. Remember how you treated the man who came to you in good faith!”

The crowd fell silent. Even his most vocal challengers sat.

“You were warned about this trial multiple times, human,” Kelek said from behind. “They have made their choice.”

“Not all of them,” Adolin said. “I thought I’d find rational people inside these gates. Honorable spren. But you know what? I’m happy I didn’t. Because now I know you for what you are. You’re people, like any of us. Some of you are scared. It makes you afraid to commit. It makes you consider things you would once have thought irrational.

“I understand that. I am glad to find you are like humans, because I know what it means. It means you question—that you’re afraid, you’re uncertain. Believe me, I feel these things too. But you can’t sit here and pretend that all humans are the same, that all humans deserve to be thrown away, when you yourselves are as flawed as we are. This trial proves it. Your hearts prove it.”

He stared out at them. Daring them. Challenging them.

Finally, looking uncomfortable, the spren in the first row cleared his throat and stood. “Did you know—”

“Oh, cut the act,” Adolin said to him. “You want to continue this farce? Fine. Do what you’re going to do. I’ll make it legal and ask—what is it you’ve obviously planned next to try to discredit me?”

The spren searched about the audience, uncertain. “I … Well, did you know about this?” He waved toward the top of the forum. The spren there parted, and everyone turned, looking up at someone being led down the steps by Amuna, the limber honorspren who kept the deadeyes. Today she led a Cryptic—one with a broken pattern, the head wilted.

Damnation. It was as he’d feared.

“Do you know this Cryptic?” Amuna demanded from the steps.

“If it’s the same one I saw when I first landed on these shores,” Adolin said, “then no. I just saw them once, in the market where the caravans cross.”

“You know her story?”

“I … Yes, I was told it by a shopkeeper.”

“She was killed only a few years ago,” Amuna said. “This is proof of your lies. Modern Radiants cannot be trusted.”

“There is no evidence that a Radiant did this,” Adolin said. “We encountered humans—who have nothing to do with my people—who attacked Notum. Perhaps they attacked her.”

“That kind of attack leaves a spren who can eventually be healed, with enough Stormlight,” Amuna said. “The only true death for a spren—the only way to create a deadeye—is through broken Radiant oaths.” Amuna gestured toward the deadeye. “This Cryptic didn’t fall during the days of the Recreance. She was killed less than a decade ago. By one of your Radiants.”

“Likely someone new, untested,” Adolin said. “Someone we don’t know about. Not one of ours; a poor new Radiant who didn’t understand what they were doing. If you’d simply…”

But he knew he’d lost them. The crowds shifted, pulling away from the Cryptic, scooting in their seats. Another spren from the first row stood up and shouted questions at Adolin, joined by a dozen others, their words piling atop one another. How many spren would have to die before he admitted Radiants were a bad idea? Did he know the old Radiants had killed their spren because they worried about something more dangerous?

Adolin lowered his arms before the assault. Blended had tried to prepare him as best she could, but Adolin was no expert in legal defenses. He’d let himself be maneuvered, like being backed into unfavorable footing in a duel.

The reveal of the Cryptic overshadowed anything else he might say, any other arguments he could make. He looked to Kelek, who nodded, then gestured for him to go. Angry questions battered Adolin as he walked up the steps with as much dignity as he could manage. He knew when a duel was rigged. They’d been telling him from the beginning that it would be. And still he’d believed he could convince them.

Idiot.

* * *

Some hours after Adolin’s second day of trial, Shallan closed her eyes, resting her head against his bare chest, listening to his heartbeat.

She would never have thought she’d find that sound so comforting. For most of her life, she’d never considered what it would mean to be this close to someone. It would have been alien for her to imagine the blissful warmth of skin against skin, her safehand reaching alongside his face, fingers curled into his hair. How could she possibly have anticipated the wonderful intimacy of feeling his breath on her hair, of listening to his heartbeat, louder to her than her own. The rhythm of his life.

Lying there, everything seemed—for a moment—perfect.

Adolin rested his arm across her bare back. The room was dark, their drapes drawn closed. She wasn’t accustomed to darkness; usually you had a chip sitting out to give at least a little light. But here they had no spheres.

Except what she had hidden in the trunk. Sequestered with the cube that spoke between realms. And a very special knife.

“I love you,” Adolin whispered in the dark. “What did I do to deserve you?”

“Blaspheme, perhaps,” she said. “Or play pranks on your brother. I’m not sure what a person might do to make the Almighty curse them with me. Perhaps you were simply too slow to run away.”

He trailed his hand up her bare spine, making her shiver as he finally rested it on the back of her head. “You’re brilliant,” he whispered. “Determined. Funny.”

Tags: Brandon Sanderson The Stormlight Archive Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net