Oathbringer: Book Three of the Stormlight Archive

Veil tossed aside the havah, instead pulling on trousers and a tight shirt, then boots and a long white coat. She finished with only a simple glove on the left hand. Veil, of course, wasn’t in the least embarrassed at that.

There was a simple relief for Shallan’s pain. There was an easy way to hide. Veil hadn’t suffered as Shallan had—and she was tough enough to handle that sort of thing anyway. Becoming her was like setting down a terrible burden.

Veil threw a scarf around her neck, then slung a rugged satchel—acquired for Veil specifically—over her shoulder. Hopefully the conspicuous knife handle sticking out from the top would look natural, even intimidating.

The part at the back of her mind that was still Shallan worried about this. Would she look fake? She’d almost certainly missed some subtle clues encoded in her behavior, dress, or speech. These would indicate to the right people that Veil didn’t have the hard-bitten experience she feigned.

Well, she would have to do her best and hope to recover from her inevitable mistakes. She tied another knife onto her belt, long, but not quite a sword, since Veil wasn’t lighteyed. Fortunately. No lighteyed woman would be able to prance around so obviously armed. Some mores grew lax the farther you descended the social ladder.

“Well?” Veil asked, turning to the wall, where Pattern hung.

“Mmm…” he said. “Good lie.”

“Thank you.”

“Not like the other.”

“Radiant?”

“You slip in and out of her,” Pattern said, “like the sun behind clouds.”

“I just need more practice,” Veil said. Yes, that voice sounded excellent. Shallan was getting far better with sounds.

She picked Pattern up—which involved pressing her hand against the wall, letting him pass over to her skin and then her coat. With him humming happily, she crossed her room and stepped out onto the balcony. The first moon had risen, violet and proud Salas. She was the least bright of the moons, which meant it was mostly dark out.

Most rooms on the outside had these small balconies, but hers on the second level was particularly advantageous. It had steps down to the field below. Covered in furrows for water and ridges for planting rockbuds, the field also had boxes at the edges for growing tubers or ornamental plants. Each tier of the city had a similar one, with eighteen levels inside separating them.

She stepped down to the field in the darkness. How had anything ever grown up here? Her breath puffed out in front of her, and coldspren grew around her feet.

The field had a small access doorway back into Urithiru. Perhaps the subterfuge of not exiting through her room wasn’t necessary, but Veil preferred to be careful. She wouldn’t want guards or servants remarking on how Brightness Shallan went about during odd hours of the night.

Besides, who knew where Mraize and his Ghostbloods had operatives? They hadn’t contacted her since that first day in Urithiru, but she knew they’d be watching. She still didn’t know what to do about them. They had admitted to assassinating Jasnah, which should be grounds enough to hate them. They also seemed to know things, important things, about the world.

Veil strolled through the corridor, carrying a small hand lamp for light, as a sphere would make her stand out. She passed evening crowds that kept the corridors of Sebarial’s quarter as busy as his warcamp had been. Things never seemed to slow down here as much as they did in Dalinar’s quarter.

The strangely mesmerizing strata of the corridors guided her out of Sebarial’s quarter. The number of people in the hallways slackened. Just Veil and those lonely, endless tunnels. She felt as if she could sense the weight of the other levels of the tower, empty and unexplored, bearing down on her. A mountain of unknown stone.

She hurried on her way, Pattern humming to himself from her coat.

“I like him,” Pattern said.

“Who?” Veil said.

“The swordsman,” Pattern said. “Mmm. The one you can’t mate with yet.”

“Can we please stop talking about him that way?”

“Very well,” Pattern said. “But I like him.”

“You hate his sword.”

“I have come to understand,” Pattern said, growing excited. “Humans … humans don’t care about the dead. You build chairs and doors out of corpses! You eat corpses! You make clothing from the skins of corpses. Corpses are things to you.”

“Well, I guess that’s true.” He seemed unnaturally excited by the revelation.

“It is grotesque,” he continued, “but you all must kill and destroy to live. It is the way of the Physical Realm. So I should not hate Adolin Kholin for wielding a corpse!”

“You just like him,” Veil said, “because he tells Radiant to respect the sword.”

“Mmm. Yes, very, very nice man. Wonderfully smart too.”

“Why don’t you marry him, then?”

Pattern buzzed. “Is that—”

“No that’s not an option.”

“Oh.” He settled down into a contented buzz on her coat, where he appeared as a strange kind of embroidery.

After a short time walking, Shallan found she needed to say something more. “Pattern. Do you remember what you said to me the other night, the first time … we became Radiant?”

“About dying?” Pattern asked. “It may be the only way, Shallan. Mmm … You must speak truths to progress, but you will hate me for making it happen. So I can die, and once done you can—”

“No. No, please don’t leave me.”

“But you hate me.”

“I hate myself too,” she whispered. “Just … please. Don’t go. Don’t die.”

Pattern seemed pleased by this, as his humming increased—though his sounds of pleasure and his sounds of agitation could be similar. For the moment, Veil let herself be distracted by the night’s quest. Adolin continued his efforts to find the murderer, but hadn’t gotten far. Aladar was Highprince of Information, and his policing force and scribes were a resource—but Adolin wanted badly to do as his father asked.

Veil thought that perhaps both were looking in the wrong places. She finally saw lights ahead and quickened her pace, eventually stepping out onto a walkway around a large cavernous room that stretched up several stories. She had reached the Breakaway: a vast collection of tents lit by many flickering candles, torches, or lanterns.

The market had sprung up shockingly fast, in defiance of Navani’s carefully outlined plans. Her idea had been for a grand thoroughfare with shops along the sides. No alleyways, no shanties or tents. Easily patrolled and carefully regulated.

The merchants had rebelled, complaining about lack of storage space, or the need to be closer to a well for fresh water. In reality, they wanted a larger market that was much harder to regulate. Sebarial, as Highprince of Commerce, had agreed. And despite having made a mess of his ledgers, he was sharp when it came to trade.