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.”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” he admitted, and she could hear the smile on his lips. “But always beautiful.”
He thought that. He actually did. She tried to believe she deserved it, but it was difficult. She was so wrapped up in lies, she literally didn’t know who she was anymore.
What if he found out? What if he knew what she really was?
“Your terrible taste in women,” Shallan whispered, “is one of the things I love most about you.” She pressed her head to his chest again, feeling the blond hairs tickle her cheek. “And I do love you. That’s the only thing I’ve figured out about my life.”
“After today, I have to agree with you on this trial idea of mine. It was a terrible plan.”
“I’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite if I couldn’t love you despite your occasional stupid idea.”
He rubbed the back of her head through her hair. “They’re going to imprison me,” he said. “They’re already building the cell. I will be a symbol to them, a display for other spren to come and see.”
“I’ll break you out,” Shallan said.
“How?”
“I stole some Stormlight,” she said. “I’ll grab my agents and Godeke, and we’ll stage a rescue. I doubt the honorspren will give chase; they’re too paranoid for that.”
Adolin breathed out in the darkness.
“Not going to forbid me?” Shallan asked.
“I … don’t know,” he said. “There are some here who want to listen to me, Shallan. Some I can persuade. But they’re afraid of dying, and I find myself uncertain. Not everyone is suited to war, and that’s what I’m recruiting them for. I can’t truthfully promise them they’ll live, that their Radiants won’t betray them. Maybe it’s not right to demand they join us.”
“Kelek told you their leaders were considering going to the enemy’s side,” Shallan said. “If that happens, those spren will end up bonding people anyway, regardless of what they think now. And the people they’ll bond aren’t the type to worry about the safety of their spren.”
“True,” Adolin said. “Storms, I wish I could get through to everyone here. Maybe tomorrow. I have a chance to rebut their witness, ask my own questions.…”
“Adolin? You said this is a terrible plan. Will the last day change that?”
“You’re not terrible at being honorable.”
He grimaced. “Someone smarter could have won this,” he said softly. “Jasnah could have made them see. Instead it’s just me. I wish … I wish I knew, Shallan. What to do. How to make them see.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, attempting to return to that earlier moment of perfection. She couldn’t. There was too much pain in his voice. His heartbeat had sped up. His breathing no longer felt serene to her, but frustrated.
It tore her apart to hear him like this. This was the man who had kept them all together when Kholinar fell, the man who was normally so optimistic. He’d come here determined to prove to his father—and maybe to himself—that he was still valuable. This stupid trial was going to take that from him.
Unless.
No, Radiant thought. We can’t fulfill Mraize’s plan. He’s manipulating you.
We do what two of us agree to, Shallan said. And I agree it is time to do as Mraize wants. We will take Kelek’s soul, and we will imitate him at the trial. Veil and I will—
No, Veil thought.
Shallan’s breath caught. What?
I change my mind, Veil said. I side with Radiant. I will not go kill Kelek. Two against one, Shallan.
Something stirred deep inside of Shallan.
“I…” Adolin whispered. “I wish I could find out who killed that poor Cryptic. That’s what ruined it today. Ruined it all.”
It is time.
“This trial is not ruined,” Formless said to Adolin. “You know, the more I contemplate it, the more I think maybe this trial wasn’t such a bad idea. You’re right. At least you’re getting a chance to show them what an honorable man looks like.”
“For all the good it’s doing,” Adolin said.
“I don’t know,” Formless said. “The High Judge is one of the Heralds. Maybe he’ll end up surprising you.…”
And so, I’ll die.
Yes, die. If you’re reading this and wondering what went wrong—why my soul evaporated soon after being claimed by the gemstone in your knife—then I name you idiot for playing with powers you only presume to understand.
Teft felt like a wet sack of socks that had been left out in a storm. The honest-by-Kelek’s-own-breath truth was that he’d figured he’d done it again. When he’d woken up naked and sickly, he’d assumed he’d gone back to the moss. In that moment, he’d hated himself.
Then he’d seen Dabbid and Rlain. When he saw their joy—more heard it in Rlain’s case—Teft knew he couldn’t truly hate himself. This was where the oaths had brought him. His self-loathing was, day by day, fading away. Sometimes it surged again. But he was stronger than it was.
The others loved him. So, whatever he’d done, he would get up and make it right. That was the oath he’d taken, and by the Almighty’s tenth name, he would keep it.
For them.
Then he’d found out the truth. He hadn’t broken. He hadn’t taken up the moss. It wasn’t his fault. For once in his storming excuse for a life, he had been kicked to the gutter and woken up with a headache—and it hadn’t been due to his own weakness.
A few days of healing later, he still found it remarkable. His streak held strong. Almost seven months with no moss. Damnation. He had an urge for some moss now, honestly. It would take the edge off his pounding headache.
But Damnation. Seven months. That was the longest he’d gone without touching the stuff since … well, since joining the army. Thirty years.
Never count those years, Teft, he told himself as Dabbid brought him some soup. Count the ones you’ve been with friends.
The soup had some meat in it, finally. What did they think would happen if he ate something proper? He’d been out for a few days, not a few years. That wasn’t enough time to turn into some kind of invalid.
In fact, he seemed to have weathered it better than Kaladin. Stormblessed sat on the floor—refused to take the bench because it was “Teft’s.” Had a haunted look to him and was a little shrunken, like he’d been hollowed out with a spoon. Whatever he’d seen when suffering those fevers, it hadn’t done him any good.
Teft had felt that way before. Right now he was mostly aches, but he’d felt that way too.
“And we were supposed to be off storming duty,” Teft grumbled, eating the cold soup. “Civvies. This is how we end up? Fate can be a bastard, eh, Kal?”
“I’m just glad to hear your voice,” Kaladin said, taking a bowl of soup from Dabbid. “Wish I could hear hers…”
His spren. He’d lost her somehow, in the fighting when he’d gotten wounded.
Teft glanced to the side, to where Phendorana sat primly on the edge of his bench. He’d needed to reach to summon her, and she said she didn’t remember anything that had happened since he went unconscious. She’d been … sort of unconscious herself.
Phendorana manifested as an older human woman, with mature features and no-nonsense Thaylen-style clothing, a skirt and a blouse. Her hair blew free as if in a phantom wind. Unlike Syl or some of the other honorspren, Phendorana preferred to manifest at the same size as a human.
She glanced at Teft, and he nodded toward Kaladin. Phendorana drew in a breath and sighed pointedly. Then—judging by how Kaladin’s spoon paused halfway to his mouth—she let the others in the room see her.
“Your Surgebinding still works?” Phendorana asked Kaladin.
“Not as well as it did before the last fight,” Kaladin said. “But I can draw in Stormlight, stick things together.”
It was the same for Teft, but they’d found that if Lift didn’t show up and do her little Regrowth thing to him every ten hours or so, he’d start to slip back into a coma. Something was definitely strange about that kid.
“If you can Surgebind,” Phendorana said, “your bond is intact. The Ancient Daughter might have lost herself through separation—it is difficult for us to exist fully in this realm. However, I suspect she will stay close by instinct. If you can get to where you lost her, you should be fine.”
“Should be,” Kaladin said softly, then started eating again. He nodded in thanks as Dabbid brought him a drink.
They hadn’t pushed Dabbid too hard on the fact that he could talk. It wasn’t a lie, keeping quiet like he had. Not a betrayal. They each fought their own personal Voidbringers, and they each chose their own weapons. When it had come time to face the storm, Dabbid had done right by Teft and Kaladin. That was what mattered. That was what it meant to be Bridge Four.
A man could choose not to talk if he didn’t want to. Wasn’t no law against it. Teft knew a handful of people who should maybe try a similar tactic.
They continued eating in silence. After their initial joy at reuniting, their enthusiasm had dampened. Each thing Teft heard about their situation seemed worse than the one before. Fused in the tower. The queen captive. Radiants fallen. The tower spren slowly being corrupted, to the point that it was almost dead. Kaladin couldn’t get it to talk to him anymore, and neither could Dabbid.
Grim days he’d awakened to. Almost wished they’d left him in a storming coma. What good was he at fixing any of this?
Phendorana glanced at him, sensing his emotions. He pointed his spoon at her and winked in thanks. No, he wasn’t going to be down on himself. He’d sworn an Ideal.
Regardless. Grim days. Grim storming days.
The door opened a short time later, and Rlain entered with Lift, who scuttled forward and sniffed at the pot of soup. She wrinkled her nose.
“Be glad we have anything,” Kaladin said. “That ardent in the monastery deserves credit. More than we gave him when we visited, Teft.”
“Most people want to be helpful,” Teft said. “Even if they need a nudge now and then. Kelek knows I do.”
Lift hopped up onto his bench and stepped around Phendorana, then touched Teft, infusin
g him with Stormlight. He took a deep breath. And storm him, the air felt a little warmer. At least now he wouldn’t fall asleep in his soup.
Rlain closed the door, then settled on the ground in the tight confines, his back to the stone wall, bits of his carapace scraping the stone.
“No news from the queen,” Rlain said. “Lift managed to talk to one of the scholars, and she says Navani has been isolated for over two weeks now. She’s imprisoned, forced to sleep in the scholars’ rooms by herself.”
“We’re all basically imprisoned,” Teft said. “Every storming one of us.”
“No,” Kaladin said. “We five are free.”
“So what do we do?” Rlain asked. “We don’t know where the last node is, the one keeping that shield up on the Sibling. If we did, it’s not like we could protect it.”
Kaladin had told them, in disheartening detail, about how difficult it had been to get in and destroy the previous two. Protecting one against the entire might of Odium’s forces? Impossible. Teft agreed on that.
“If we break this last one,” Teft said, “that’s it. Tower’s finished. But if we wait, the Fused will find a way to break it themselves. Tower’s finished.”
“We can’t fight an entire army on our own,” Kaladin said. “Teft and I have barely recovered, and our powers are temperamental at best. Two of us have lost our spren.”
“The girl can wake the other Radiants,” Teft said.
“The other Radiants are guarded,” Kaladin said.
“Guards can be distracted or dealt with,” Rlain said. “We did something similar to get Lift out. Venli is on our side. Or at least she’s not on the other side—and she’s Voice to the head Fused leading the occupation. We have resources.”
Kaladin tipped his head back, his eyes closed.
“Lad?” Teft asked.
“I don’t want any of you to take this the wrong way,” Kaladin said, not opening his eyes. “I’m not giving up. I’m not broken. No more than usual. But I’m tired. Extremely tired. And I have to wonder. I have to ask myself. Should we keep fighting? What do we want to accomplish?”
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