Yet those eyes …
“We could try a mutiny,” Veil said. “Maybe those mistspren who do all the work will listen. They can’t be happy, always hopping about, following honorspren orders.”
“I don’t know,” Kaladin said, voice hushing as one of these spren—made entirely of mist, save for the hands and face—walked past. “Could be reckless. I can’t fight them all.”
“What if you had Stormlight?” Veil asked. “If I could pinch it back for you? What then?”
He rubbed at his chin again. Storms, he looked good with a beard. All ragged and untamed through the face, contrasted by his sharp blue uniform. Like a wild spren of passion, trapped by the oaths and codes …
Wait.
Wait, had that been Veil?
Shallan shook free of the momentary drifting of personality. Kaladin didn’t seem to notice.
“Maybe,” he said. “You really think you can steal the gemstones back for us? I’d feel a lot more comfortable with some Stormlight in my pocket.”
“I…” Shallan swallowed. “Kaladin, I don’t know if … Maybe it would be best not to fight them. They’re honorspren.”
“They’re jailers,” he said, but then calmed. “But they are taking us the right direction, if only inadvertently. What if we stole back our Stormlight, then simply jumped off the ship? Can you find a bead to make us a passage toward land, like you did at Kholinar?”
“I … guess I could try. But wouldn’t the honorspren simply swing around and pick us up again?”
“I’ll think about that,” Kaladin said. “Try and find some beads that we can use.” He walked across the deck, passing by Pattern—who stood with hands clasped behind his back, thinking number-filled thoughts. Kaladin eventually settled beside Azure, speaking softly with her, probably outlining their plan.
Such that it was.
Shallan tucked her sketchpad under her arm and looked over the side of the ship. So many beads, so many souls, piled on top of each other. Kaladin wanted her to search through all of that for something helpful?
She glanced toward a passing sailor, a mistspren who had gaseous limbs that ended in gloved hands. Her feminine face was the shape of a porcelain mask, and she—like the others of her kind—wore a vest and trousers that seemed to float on a body made of swirling, indistinct fog.
“Is there a way for me to get some of those beads?” Shallan asked.
The mistspren stopped in place.
“Please?” Shallan asked. “I—”
The sailor jogged off, and then returned a short time later with the captain: a tall, imperious-looking honorspren named Notum. He glowed a soft blue-white, and wore an outdated—but sharp—naval uniform, which was part of his substance. His beard was of a cut she hadn’t seen before, with the chin shaved, almost like a Horneater, but with a thin mustache and a sculpted line of hair that ran from it up his cheeks and blended into his sideburns.
“You have a request?” he asked her.
“I would like some beads, Captain,” Shallan said. “To practice my art, if you please. I need to do something to pass the time on this trip.”
“Manifesting random souls is dangerous, Lightweaver. I would not have you doing it wantonly upon my decks.”
Keeping the true nature of her order from him had proven impossible, considering how Pattern followed her around.
“I promise not to manifest anything,” she said. “I merely want to practice visualizing the souls inside the beads. It’s part of my training.”
He studied her, clasping his hands behind his back. “Very well,” he said—which surprised her. She hadn’t expected that to work. He gave an order, however, and a mistspren lowered a bucket on a rope to get her some beads.
“Thank you,” Shallan said.
“It was a simple request,” the captain said. “Just be careful. I suppose you’d need Stormlight to manifest anyway, but still … be careful.”
“What happens if we carry the beads away too far?” Shallan asked, curious as the mistspren handed her the bucket. “They are tied to objects in the Physical Realm, right?”
“You can carry them anywhere in Shadesmar you wish,” the captain said. “Their tie is through the Spiritual Realm, and distance doesn’t matter. However, drop them—let them free—and they’ll work their way back to the general location of their physical counterpart.” He eyed her. “You are very new to all of this. When did it begin again? Radiants, swearing Ideals?”
“Well…”
Her mother’s dead face, eyes burned.
“It hasn’t been going on for long,” Shallan said. “A few months for most of us. A few years for some…”
“We had hoped this day would never come.” He turned to march toward the high deck.
“Captain?” Shallan asked. “Why did you let us out? If you’re so worried about Radiants, why not just keep us locked away?”
“It wasn’t honorable,” the captain said. “You are not prisoners.”
“What are we, then?”
“Stormfather only knows. Fortunately, I don’t have to sort it out. We’ll deliver you and the Ancient Daughter to someone with more authority. Until then, please try not to break my ship.”
* * *
As days passed, Shallan fell into a routine on the honorspren ship. She spent most days sitting on the main deck, near the wale. They let her have beads in plenitude to play with, but most of them were useless things. Rocks, sticks, bits of clothing. Still, it was useful to visualize them. Hold them, meditate on them. Understand them?
Objects had desires. Simple desires, true, but they could adhere to those desires with passion—as she’d learned during her few attempts at Soulcasting. Now, she didn’t try to change those desires. She just learned to touch them, and to listen.
She felt a familiarity to some of the beads. A growing understanding that, perhaps, she could make their souls blossom from beads into full-fledged objects on this side. Manifestations, they were called.
Between practices with the beads, she did sketches. Some worked, some didn’t. She wore the skirt that Adolin had purchased for her, hoping it would make her feel more like Shallan. Veil kept poking through, which could be useful—but the way it just kind of happened was frightening to her. This was the opposite of what Wit had told her to do, wasn’t it?
Kaladin spent the days pacing the main deck, glaring at honorspren he passed. He looked like a caged beast. Shallan felt some of his same urgency. They hadn’t seen any sign of the enemy, not since that day in Celebrant. But she slept uneasily each night, worried that she’d wake to calls of an enemy ship approaching them. Notum had confirmed that the Voidspren were creating their own empire in Shadesmar. And they controlled Cultivation’s Perpendicularity, the easiest way to get between realms.
Shallan sorted through another handful of beads, feeling the impression of a small dagger, a rock, a piece of fruit that had started to see itself as something new—something that could grow into its own identity, rather than merely a part of the whole.
What would someone see when looking at her soul? Would it give a single, unified impression? Many different ideas of what it was to be her?
Nearby, the ship’s first mate—an honorspren woman with short hair and an angular face—left the hold. Curiously, she was carrying Azure’s Shardblade. She stepped onto the main deck, beneath the shadow of the high deck, and went hiking toward Azure, who stood watching the ocean pass nearby.
Curious, Shallan pocketed the bead representing a knife—just in case—then left the bucket on top of her sketchbook and walked over. Nearby, Kaladin was pacing again, and he also noticed the sword.
“Draw her carefully,” Azure said to Borea, the first mate, as Shallan approached. “Don’t pull her out all the way—she doesn’t know you.”
Borea wore a uniform like the captain’s, all stiff and no-nonsense. She undid a small latch on the Shardblade, eased it from its sheath a half inch, then drew in a sharp breath. “It … tingles.”
“She’
s investigating you,” Azure said.
“It really is as you say,” Borea said. “A Shardblade that requires no spren—no enslavement. This is something else. How did you do it?”
“I will trade knowledge, per our deal, once we arrive.”
Borea snapped the Blade closed. “A good bond, human. We accept your offer.” Surprisingly, the woman held the weapon toward Azure, who took it.
Shallan stepped closer, watching as Borea walked off toward the steps up to the high deck.
“How?” Shallan asked as Azure belted on the sword. “You got them to give your weapon back?”
“They’re quite reasonable,” Azure said, “so long as you make the right promises. I’ve negotiated for passage and an exchange of information, once we reach Lasting Integrity.”
“You’ve done what?” Kaladin said. He stalked over. “What did I just hear?”
“I’ve made a deal, Stormblessed,” Azure said, meeting his gaze. “I’ll be free, once we reach their stronghold.”
“We’re not going to reach their stronghold,” Kaladin said softly. “We’re going to escape.”
“I’m not your soldier, or even Adolin’s subject. I’m going to do what gets me to the perpendicularity—and, barring that, I’m going to find out what these people know about the criminal I’m hunting.”
“You’d throw away honor for a bounty?”
“I’m only here because you two—through no fault of your own, I admit—trapped me. I don’t blame you, but I’m also not indebted to your mission.”
“Traitor,” he said softly.
Azure gave him a flat look. “At some point, Kal, you need to admit that the best thing you can do right now is go with these spren. At their stronghold, you could clear up this misunderstanding, then move on.”
“That could take weeks.”
“I wasn’t aware we were on a schedule.”
“Dalinar is in danger. Don’t you care?”
“About a man I don’t know?” Azure said. “In danger from a threat you can’t define, happening at a time you can’t pinpoint?” She folded her arms. “Forgive me for not sharing in your anxiety.”
Kaladin set his jaw, then turned and stalked away—right up the steps toward the high deck. They weren’t supposed to go up there, but sometimes rules didn’t seem to apply to Kaladin Stormblessed.
Azure shook her head, then turned and gripped the ship railing.
“He’s just having a bad day, Azure,” Shallan said. “I think he feels anxious because his spren is imprisoned.”
“Maybe. I’ve seen a lot of young hotheads in my time, and young Stormblessed feels like another color altogether. I wish I knew what it was he was so desperate to prove.”
Shallan nodded, then glanced again at Azure’s sword. “You said … the honorspren have information on your bounty?”
“Yeah. Borea thinks the weapon I’m chasing passed through their fortress a few years ago.”
“Your bounty is a … weapon?”
“And the one who brought it to your land. A Shardblade that bleeds black smoke.” Azure turned toward her. “I don’t mean to be callous, Shallan. I realize you’re all eager to return to your lands. I can even believe that—through some tide of Fortune—Kaladin Stormblessed has foreseen some danger.”
Shallan shivered. Be wary of anyone who claims to be able to see the future.
“But,” Azure continued, “even if his mission is critical, it doesn’t mean mine isn’t as well.”
Shallan glanced toward the high deck, where she could faintly hear Kaladin making a disturbance. Azure turned and clasped her hands, adopting a far-off look. She seemed to want to be alone, so Shallan trailed back toward where she’d left her things. She settled down and removed the bucket from her sketchpad. The pages fluttered, showing various versions of herself, each one wrong. She kept drawing Veil’s face on Radiant’s body, or vice versa.
She started back into her latest bucket of beads. She found a shirt and a bowl, but the next bead was a fallen tree branch. This brought up memories of the last time she’d dipped into Shadesmar—freezing, near death, on the banks of the ocean.
Why … why hadn’t she tried to Soulcast since then? She’d made excuses, avoided thinking about it. Had focused all her attention on Lightweaving.
She’d ignored Soulcasting. Because she’d failed.
Because she was afraid. Could she invent someone who wasn’t afraid? Someone new, since Veil was broken, and had been since that failure in the Kholinar market …
“Shallan?” Adolin asked, coming over to her. “Are you all right?”
She shook herself. How long had she been sitting there? “I’m fine,” she said. “Just … remembering.”
“Good things or bad?”
“All memories are bad,” she said immediately, then looked away, blushing.
He settled down next to her. Storms, his overt concern was annoying. She didn’t want him worrying about her.
“Shallan?” he asked.
“Shallan will be fine,” she said. “I’ll bring her back in a moment. I just have to recover … her…”
Adolin glanced at the fluttering pages with the different versions of her. He reached out and hugged her, saying nothing. Which turned out to be the right thing to say.
She closed her eyes and tried to pull herself together. “Which one do you like the most?” she finally asked. “Veil is the one who wears the white outfit, but I’m having trouble with her right now. She peeks out sometimes when I don’t want, but then won’t come when I need her. Radiant is the one who practices with the sword. I made her prettier than the others, and you can talk to her about dueling. But some of the time, I’ll have to be someone who can Lightweave. I’m trying to think of who she should be.…”
“Ash’s eyes, Shallan!”
“Shallan’s broken, so I think I’m trying to hide her. Like a cracked vase, where you turn the nice side toward the room, hiding the flaw. I’m not doing it on purpose, but it’s happening, and I don’t know how to stop it.”
He held her.
“No advice?” she asked, numb. “Everyone always seems to have loads.”
“You’re the smart one. What can I say?”
“It’s confusing, being all these people. I feel like I’m presenting different faces all the time. Lying to everyone, because I’m different inside. I … That doesn’t make sense, does it?” She squeezed her eyes shut again. “I’ll pull it back together. I’ll be … someone.”
“I…” He pulled her tight again as the ship rocked. “Shallan, I killed Sadeas.”
She blinked, then pulled back and looked him in the eyes. “What?”
“I killed Sadeas,” Adolin whispered. “We met in the corridors of the tower. He started insulting Father, talking about the terrible things he was going to do to us. And … and I couldn’t listen anymore. Couldn’t stand there and look at his smug red face. So … I attacked him.”
“So all that time we were hunting a killer…”
“It was me. I’m the one the spren copied the first time. I kept thinking about how I was lying to you, to Father, and to everyone. The honorable Adolin Kholin, the consummate duelist. A murderer. And Shallan, I … I don’t think I’m sorry.
“Sadeas was a monster. He repeatedly tried to get us killed. His betrayal caused the deaths of many of my friends. When I formally challenged him to a duel, he wiggled out of it. He was smarter than me. Smarter than Father. He’d have won eventually. So I killed him.”
He pulled her to him and took a deep breath.
Shallan shivered, then whispered, “Good for you.”
“Shallan! You’re a Radiant. You’re not supposed to condone something like this!”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I only know that the world is a better place for the death of Torol Sadeas.”
“Father wouldn’t like it, if he knew.”
“Your father is a great man,” Shallan said, “who is, perhaps, better off not knowing
everything. For his own good.”
Adolin breathed in again. With her head pressed to his chest, the air moving in and out of his lungs was audible, and his voice was different. More resonant. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, maybe. In any case, I think I know what it’s like to feel like you’re lying to the world. So maybe if you figure out what to do, you could tell me?”
She leaned into him, listening to his heartbeat, his breathing. She felt his warmth.
“You never did say,” she whispered, “which one you prefer.”
“It’s obvious. I prefer the real you.”
“Which one is that, though?”
“She’s the one I’m talking to right now. You don’t have to hide, Shallan. You don’t have to push it down. Maybe the vase is cracked, but that only means it can show what’s inside. And I like what’s inside.”
So warm. Comfortable. And strikingly unfamiliar. What was this peace? This place without fear?
Noises from above spoiled it. Pulling back, she looked toward the upper deck. “What is the bridgeboy doing up there?”
* * *
“Sir,” the misty sailor spren said in broken Alethi. “Sir! Not. Please, not!”
Kaladin ignored her, looking through the spyglass he’d taken from the chain nearby. He stood on the rear section of the high deck, searching the sky. That Fused had watched them leave Celebrant. The enemy would find them eventually.
Dalinar alone. Surrounded by nine shadows …
Kaladin finally handed the spyglass to the anxious mistspren. The captain of the ship, in a tight uniform that probably would have been uncomfortable on a human, approached and dismissed the sailor, who scuttled away.
“I would prefer,” Captain Notum said, “if you would refrain from upsetting my crew.”
“I would prefer that you let Syl go,” Kaladin snapped, feeling her anxiety through their bond. “As I told you, the Stormfather has condoned what she did. There is no crime.”
The short spren clasped his hands behind his back. Of all the spren they’d interacted with on this side, the honorspren seemed to share the most human mannerisms.
“I could lock you away again,” the captain said. “Or even have you tossed overboard.”
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