Confusion thrummed in Venli’s ears. But on her shoulder, Ulim had perked up.
“I have legal jurisdiction here to act on behalf of the king,” Nale said. “I cannot, however, take specific action against him. Tonight I found reason to have him killed, but it will take me months of planning to achieve the proper legality.
“Fortunately, I have read your treaty. There is a provision allowing one party to legally break it and attack the other—should they have proof the other is conspiring against them. I know for a fact that Gavilar is planning to use this very provision to assault your people in the near future. I give you this knowledge, sworn by a Herald of the Almighty. You have proof that he is conspiring against you, and may act.
“The man who can help you is a slave for sale in the market. The person who owns him is hoping some of the king’s wealthy visitors will want to pick up new servants before the feast. You have little time remaining. The slave you want is the sole Shin man among the crowd. The gemstones your people wear as ornaments will be enough to buy him.”
“I don’t understand,” Venli said.
Nale looked at Ulim on her shoulder. “This Shin man bears Jezrien’s Blade. And he is expertly trained in its employ.” He looked back to Venli. “I judge you innocent of any crime, using provision eighty-seven of the Alethi code—pardon of a criminal who has a more vital task to perform for the good of the whole.”
He then strode away, leaving them in the hall.
“That was…” Ulim said. “Wow. He’s far gone. As bad as some of the Fused. But that was well done, Venli. I’m trying not to sound too surprised. I think you may have fooled someone who is basically a god.”
“It’s an old trick, Ulim,” she said. “Everyone—humans, listeners, and apparently gods—deep down suspects that every failure is their own. If you reflect blame on them, most people will assume they are responsible.”
“Maybe I gave up on you too easily,” he said. “Old Jezrien’s Blade is here, is it? Curious…”
“What does that mean?”
“Let’s say,” Ulim told her, “your people were to start a war with the humans. Would that lead your people to the desperation we want? Would they take the forms we offer?”
“Attack the humans?” Venli said to Confusion. They stood alone in the hallway, but she still hushed her voice. “Why would we do what that Herald said? We’re not here to start a war, Ulim. I merely want to get my people ready to face one, should the humans try to destroy us!”
Ulim crackled with lightning, then moved up her arm, toward her gemheart. She hesitated to let him in. He worked in strange ways, not according to the rules. He could move in and out of her without a highstorm to facilitate the transformation.
He began to vibrate energy through her. You were so clever, Venli, tricking Nale. This is going to work. You and me. This bond.
“But … a war?”
I don’t care why Nale thought we should attack the king, Ulim said. It has given me a seed of an idea. It’s not his plan, but your plan we’re following. We came here to make your people see how dangerous the humans are. But they are foolish, and you are wise. You can see how much of a threat they are. You need to show them.
“Yes,” Venli said. That was her plan.
Ulim slipped into her gemheart.
The humans are planning to betray you, Ulim said. A Herald confirmed it. We must strike at them first.
“And in so doing, make our people desperate,” Venli said. “When the humans retaliate, it will threaten our destruction. Yes … Then I could persuade the listeners they need forms of power. They must accept our help, or be annihilated.”
Exactly.
“A war would … likely mean the deaths of thousands,” Venli said, attuning Anxiety. The rhythm felt small and weak. Distant. “On both sides.”
Your people will be restored to their true place as rulers of this entire land, Ulim said. Yes, blood will spill first. But in the end you will rule, Venli. Can you pay this small price now, for untold glories in the future?
If it meant being strong enough to never again be weak? Never again feeling as small as she had today?
“Yes,” she said, attuning Destruction. “What do we do?”
So, words. Why words, now? Why do I write?
Shallan hurried into the room she shared with Adolin, putting the strange experience with Sixteen behind her. No need to think about … that other spren. The Cryptic deadeye. Stay focused, and don’t let Radiant slip out again.
Pattern shadowed her, closing the door with a click. “Aren’t you supposed to be meeting with Adolin right now?”
“Yes,” Shallan said, kneeling beside the bed and pulling out her trunk. “That makes this the best time to contact Mraize, as we don’t risk Adolin walking in on us.”
“He will wonder where you are.”
“I’ll make it up to him later,” Shallan said, unlocking the trunk and looking in.
“Veil?” Pattern said, walking up.
“No, I’m Shallan.”
“Are you? You feel wrong, Shallan. Mmm. You must listen. I did use the cube. I have a copy of the key to your trunk. Wit helped me.”
“It’s no matter,” Shallan said. “Done. Over. Don’t care. Let’s move on and—”
Pattern took her hands, kneeling beside her. His pattern, once so alien to her eyes, was now familiar. She felt as if by staring at its shifting lines, she could see secrets about how the world worked. Maybe even about how she worked.
“Please,” Pattern said. “Let me tell you. We don’t have to talk about your past; I was wrong to try to force you. Yes, I did take the cube. To talk to Wit. He has a cube like it too, Shallan! He told me.
“I was so worried about you. I didn’t know what to do. So I went to him, and he said we could talk with the cube, if I was worried. Mmm … About what was happening with you. He said I was very funny! But when I talked to him last, he warned me. He’s been spied on by the Ghostbloods. The things I told him, another heard. That was how Mraize knew things.”
“You talked to Wit,” Shallan whispered. “And a spy overheard? That … That means…”
“None of your friends are traitors,” Pattern said. “Except me! Only a little though! I am sorry.”
No spy. And Pattern …
Was this another lie? Was she getting so wrapped up in them that she couldn’t see what was true? She gripped his too-long hands. She wanted so badly to trust again.
Your trust kills, Shallan, the dark part of her thought. The part she named Formless. Except it wasn’t formless. She knew exactly what it was.
For now, she retreated—and released Veil and Radiant. Veil immediately took control and gasped, putting her hand to her head. “Storms,” she whispered. “That was a … strange experience.”
“I have made things worse,” Pattern said. “I am very foolish.”
“You tried to help,” Veil said. “But you should have come to me. I’m Veil, by the way. I could have helped you.”
Pattern hummed softly. Veil got the sense that he didn’t trust her completely. Well, she wasn’t certain she trusted her own mind completely, so there was that.
“There’s a lot to think about in what you said,” Veil said. “For now, please don’t keep anything more from us. All right?”
Pattern’s pattern slowed, then quickened, and he nodded.
“Great.” Veil took a deep breath. Well, that was over.
Who killed Ialai? Shallan whispered from inside.
Veil hesitated.
Perhaps Pattern was the one who moved the cube all those times, Shallan said. And he’s the reason Mraize knew about the seed we planted about the corrupted spren. But someone killed Ialai. Who was it?
Storms. There was more to this mess. A lot more. Veil, however, needed time to digest it. So for now, she put all of that aside and picked up the communication cube. She repeated the incantation. “Deliver to me Mraize, cube, and transfer my voice to him.”
It took lo
nger this time than others; she didn’t know what the difference was. She sat there some ten minutes before Mraize finally spoke.
“I trust you have only good news to report, little knife,” his voice said.
“It’s bad news—but you’re getting it anyway,” she said. “This is Veil, with Pattern here. We’ve eliminated the final human in Lasting Integrity from consideration. Either Restares has learned to disguise himself beyond my ability to spot him, or he’s not here.”
“How certain are you of this?” Mraize said, calm. She’d never seen him get upset at bad news.
“Depends,” she said. “Like I said, he could have disguised himself. Or maybe your intel is wrong.”
“It’s possible,” Mraize admitted. “Communication between realms is difficult, and information travels slowly. Have you asked if any humans left the fortress recently?”
“They claim the last human who left was five months ago,” she said. “But that was Azure, not Restares. I know her. I’ve described our quarry to several honorspren, but they say the description is too vague, and that many humans look alike to them. I’m inclined to think they’re telling the truth. They completely neglected to mention that Sixteen—the person I’ve spent the last few days planning to intercept—was Shin.”
“Troubling,” Mraize said.
“You’ve been vague in your answers to me,” Veil said. “Let me ask clearly. Could Restares have become a Lightweaver? Cryptics have different requirements for bonding than most Radiants.”
“I highly doubt Restares would have joined any Radiant order,” Mraize said. “It’s not in his nature. I suppose, however, that we can’t discount the possibility. There are variations on Lightweaving in the cosmere that do not require a spren—plus the Honorblades exist and are poorly tracked these days, even by our agents.”
“I thought they were all in Shinovar, except the one Moash wields.”
“They were.” Mraize said it simply, directly, with an implication: She wasn’t getting any more information on that topic. Not unless she finished this mission, whereupon he had promised to answer all her questions.
“You should equip yourself with Stormlight,” Mraize suggested. “If you have not found Restares, there is a chance he knows you are there—and that could be dangerous. He is not the type to fight unless cornered, but once pushed, there are few beings as dangerous on this planet.”
“Great, wonderful,” Veil said. “Nice to know I have to start sleeping with one eye open. You could have warned me.”
“Considering your paranoia, would you have done anything differently?” Mraize sounded amused.
“You’re probably right about the Stormlight,” Veil said. “The honorspren do have a store of it; they let us use it to heal Adolin. Makes me wonder where they obtained all the perfect gemstones to hold it for so long.”
“They’ve had millennia to gather them, little knife,” Mraize said. “And they love gemstones, perhaps for the same reason we admire swords. During the days of the Radiants, some even believed the stories of the Stone of Ten Dawns, and spent lifetimes hunting it. How will you obtain Stormlight from these honorspren?”
“I’ll begin working on a plan,” she said.
“Excellent. And how is your … stability, little knife?”
She thought about Shallan taking control, locking Veil and Radiant away somehow. “Could be better,” she admitted.
“Answers will help free you,” Mraize said. “Once you’ve earned them.”
“Perhaps,” Veil said. “Or perhaps you’ll be surprised at what I already know.” The trouble wasn’t getting answers. It was finding the presence of mind to accept them.
Now, was there a way she could confirm what Pattern had said? About Wit, and the Ghostbloods spying on him? She toyed with the idea, but decided not to say anything. She didn’t want to tell Mraize too much.
Her musings were interrupted by the sound of people shouting. That was uncommon here in honorspren territory.
“I need to go,” she told Mraize. “Something’s happening.”
* * *
The honorspren had a multitude of reasons for delaying Adolin’s trial. Their first and most obvious excuse was the need to wait for the “High Judge,” a spren who was out on patrol. Adolin had spent weeks assuming this was the Stormfather, because of things they’d said. Yet when he’d mentioned that the other day, the honorspren had laughed.
So now he had no idea who or what the High Judge was, and their answers to him were strange. The High Judge was some kind of spren, that seemed clear. But not an honorspren. The judge was of a variety that was very rare.
In any case, waiting for the High Judge to return gave the honorspren time to prepare documentation, notes, and testimonies. Had that all been ready, though, they wouldn’t have allowed the trial to proceed yet. Because Adolin, they explained, was an idiot.
Well, they didn’t say it in so many words. Still, he couldn’t help but suspect that was how they felt. He was woefully ignorant of what they considered proper trial procedure. Thus he found himself in today’s meeting. Every two days he had an appointment for instruction. The honorspren were quite clear: His offer, worded as it had been, let them condemn him as a traitor and murderer. Though that hadn’t completely been his intent, this trial would let them pin the sins of the ancient Radiants on him. Before they did so, they wanted him to understand proper trial procedure. What strange beings.
He stepped softly through the library, a long flat building on the northern plane of Lasting Integrity. Honorspren liked their books, judging by the extensive collection—but he rarely saw them in here. They seemed to enjoy owning the books, treating them like relics to be hoarded.
His tutor, on the other hand, was a different story. She stood on a step stool, counting through books on an upper shelf. Her clothing, made of her substance, was reminiscent of a Thaylen tradeswoman’s attire: a knee-length skirt with blouse and shawl. Unlike an honorspren, her coloring was an ebony black, with a certain sheen in the right light. Like the variegated colors oil made on a sword blade.
She was an inkspren; Jasnah had bonded one, though Adolin had never seen him. This one called herself Blended—a name that felt peculiar to him.
“Ah, Highprince,” she said, noting him. “You are.”
“I am,” he said. During their weeks talking together, he’d grown mostly accustomed to her distinctive style of speaking.
“Good, good,” she said, climbing down the steps. “Our time nearly is not. Come, we must talk.”
“Our time nearly is not?” Adolin said, hurrying alongside her. She was shorter than most honorspren, and wore her hair—pure black like the rest of her—pinned up in something that wasn’t quite a braid. Though her skin was mostly monochrome black, faint variations outlined her features, making her round face and small nose more visible.
“Yes,” she said. “The honorspren have set the date for your trial. It is.”
“When?”
“Three days.”
“The High Judge is here, then?” Adolin asked as they reached their study table.
“He must be returning soon,” she said. “Perhaps he already is in this place. So, we must make decisions.” She sat without ceasing her torrent of words. “You are not ready. Your progress is not, Highprince Adolin. I do not say this to be insulting. It simply is.”
“I know,” he said, sitting down. “Honorspren law is … complex. I wish you could speak for me.”
“It is not their way.”
“It seems designed to be frustrating.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “This is unsurprising, as it was devised by a stuck-up bunch of prim, overly polished buttons.”
There was no love lost between inkspren and honorspren. And Blended was supposedly among the more diplomatic of her type—she was the official inkspren emissary to Lasting Integrity.
“I know an honorspren in my realm,” Adolin said. “She can be … interesting at times, but I wouldn’t call her prim
.”
“The Ancient Daughter?” Blended asked. “She’s not the only one whose personality is as you speak. Many honorspren used to be like that. Others still are. But Lasting Integrity, and those who here are, have had a strong effect on many honorspren. They preach isolation. Others listen.”
“It’s so extreme,” Adolin said. “They must see there is a better way of dealing with their anger at humans.”
“Agreed. A better solution is. I would simply kill you.”
Adolin started. “… Excuse me?”
“If a human tries to bond me,” Blended said, flipping through the books in her stack, “I will attack him and kill him. This better solution is.”
“I don’t think Radiants force bonds,” Adolin said.
“They would coerce. I would strike first. Your kind are not trustworthy.” She set aside one of her books, shaking her head. “Regardless, I am worried about your training. It is weak, through no fault of yours. The honorspren will use the intricacies of their laws against you, to your detriment. You will be as a child trying to fight a duel. I believe trials among your kind are more direct?”
“Basically, you go before the lighteyes in charge and plead your case,” Adolin said. “He listens, maybe confers with witnesses or experts, then renders judgment.”
“Brief, simple,” she said. “Very flawed, but simple. The honorspren of this region like their rules. But perhaps a better solution is.” She held up one of the books she’d been looking through when he arrived. “We can motion for a trial by witness. A variety more akin to what you know already.”
“That sounds great,” Adolin said, relaxing. If he had to listen to one more lecture including terms like “exculpatory evidence” and “compensatory restitution,” he would ask them to execute him and be done with it.
Blended took notes as she spoke. “It is well I spent these weeks training you in basics. This will prepare you for your best hope of victory, which is this format. Therefore, before I explain, recite to me your general trial strategy.”
They’d gone over this dozens of times, to the point that Adolin could have said it backward. He didn’t mind; you drilled your soldiers in battle formations until they could do maneuvers in their sleep. And this trial would be like a battle; Blended had repeatedly warned him to be wary of verbal ambushes.
Rhythm of War (9781429952040) Page 109