Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive

“Oh!” Yokska said. “Your Majesty, you should know. The proclamation requiring the execution of the parshmen … well, a coalition of important lighteyes didn’t follow it. Then, after that terrible storm, the queen started giving other orders, so the lighteyes went to meet with her.”

“Let me guess,” Kaladin said. “They never came back from the palace.”

“No, Brightlord, they did not.”

How about when I woke and faced Jasnah, after I’d almost died, and she’d discovered that I’d betrayed her?

Surely remembering that event would be enough.

No?

Bother.

“So the parshmen,” Adolin said. “Did they get executed?”

“No,” Yokska continued. “Like I said, everyone was concerned with the riots—save for the servants posting the queen’s orders, I suppose. The Wall Guard eventually took action. They restored some measure of order in the city, then rounded up the parshmen and exiled them to the plain outside. And then…”

“The Everstorm came,” Shallan said, covertly undoing the button on her safehand sleeve.

Yokska seemed to shrink down in her seat. The others fell silent, which provided the perfect opportunity for Shallan. She took a deep breath, then strolled forward, holding her sketchpad as if distracted. She tripped herself over a roll of cloth on the floor, yelped, and tumbled into the center of the ring of chairs.

She ended up sprawled on the floor, skirts up about her waist—and she wasn’t even wearing the leggings today. Her safehand bulged out from between the sleeve buttons, poking into the open right in front of not just the king, but Kaladin and Adolin.

Perfectly, horribly, incredibly mortifying. She felt a deep blush come on, and shamespren dropped around her in a wave. Normally, they took the shape of falling red and white flower petals.

These were like pieces of broken glass.

The men, of course, were more distracted by the position she’d gotten herself into. She squawked, managed to take a Memory of the shamespren, and righted herself, blushing furiously and tucking her hand in her sleeve.

That, she thought, might be the craziest thing you’ve ever done. Which is saying a lot.

She grabbed her sketchbook and bustled away, passing Yokska’s white-bearded husband—Shallan still hadn’t heard him speak a word—standing in the doorway with a tray of wine and tea. Shallan grabbed the darkest cup of wine and downed it in a single gulp, feeling the stares of the men on her back.

“Shallan?” Adolin piped up. “Um…”

“I’mfinethatwasanexperiment,” she said, ducking into the showroom and throwing herself into a seat placed there for customers. Storms, that was humiliating.

She could still see partway into the other room. Yokska’s husband walked with his silver tray to the group. He stopped by Yokska—though serving the king first would have been the correct protocol—and rested a hand on her shoulder. She put her own on his.

Shallan flipped open her sketchpad, and was pleased to see more shamespren dropping around her. Still glass. She started a drawing, burying herself in it to keep from thinking about what she’d just done.

“So…” Elhokar said in the next room. “We were talking about the Wall Guard. They obeyed the queen’s orders?”

“Well, that was around the time that the highmarshal appeared. I’ve never seen him either. He doesn’t come down from the wall much. He restored order, so that’s good, but the Wall Guard doesn’t have the numbers to police the city and watch the wall—so they’ve taken to watching the wall and mostly leaving us to just … survive in here.”

“Who rules now?” Kaladin asked.

“Nobody,” Yokska said. “Various highlords … well, they basically seized sections of the city. Some argued that the monarchy had fallen, that the king—I beg pardon, Your Majesty—had abandoned them. But the real power in the city is the Cult of Moments.”

Shallan looked up from her drawing.

“Those people we saw on the street?” Adolin asked. “Dressed like spren.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Yokska said. “I don’t … I don’t know what to tell you. Spren look strange sometimes in the city, and people think it has to do with the queen, the weird storm, the parshmen … They’re scared. Some have started claiming they can see a new world coming, a truly strange new world. One ruled by spren.

“The Vorin church has declared the Cult of Moments a heresy, but so many of the ardents were in the palace when it grew dark. Most of those remaining took refuge with one of the highlords who claimed small sections of Kholinar. Those are increasingly isolated, ruling their districts on their own. And then … and then there are the fabrials.…”

Fabrials. Shallan scrambled to her feet and stuck her head into the next room. “What about the fabrials?”

“If you use a fabrial,” Yokska said, “of any sort—from spanreed, to warmer, to painrial—you’ll draw them. Screaming yellow spren that ride the wind like streaks of terrible light. They shout and swirl about you. That then usually brings the creatures from the sky, the ones with the loose clothing and long spears. They seize the fabrial, and sometimes kill the one trying to use it.”

Storms … Shallan thought.

“Have you seen this?” Kaladin asked. “What did the spren look like? You heard them speak?”

Shallan glanced at Yokska, who had sunk down farther in her seat. “I think … maybe we should give the good tailor a break,” Shallan noted. “We’ve shown up on her doorstep out of nowhere, stolen her bedroom, and are now interrogating her. I’m sure the world won’t fall apart if we let her have a few minutes to drink her tea and recover.”

The woman looked at Shallan with an expression of pure gratitude.

“Storms!” Adolin said, leaping to his feet. “Of course you’re right, Shallan. Yokska, forgive us, and thank you so much for—”

“No need for thanks, Your Highness,” she said. “Oh, I did have Passion that help would come. And here it is! But if it pleases the king, a little rest … Yes, a little rest would be much appreciated.”

Kaladin grunted and nodded, and Elhokar waved a hand in a way that wasn’t quite dismissive. More just … self-absorbed. The three men left Yokska to rest and joined Shallan in the showroom, where light from the setting sun streamed between the drapes on the front windows. Those would normally be open to show off the tailor’s creations, but no doubt they’d lately spent most of their time closed.

The four gathered together to digest what they’d discovered. “Well?” Elhokar asked, speaking—for once—in a soft, thoughtful tone.

“I want to know what’s going on with the Wall Guard,” Kaladin said. “Their leader … none of you have heard of him?”

“Highmarshal Azure?” Adolin asked. “No. But I’ve been away for years. There are bound to be many officers in the city who were promoted while the rest of us were at war.”

“Azure might be the one feeding the city,” Kaladin said. “Someone is providing grain. This place would have eaten itself to starvation without some source of food.”