Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

“It’s a good plan, Elhokar,” Adolin said. “Nice work.”

A simple compliment probably should not have made a king beam like it did. Elhokar even drew a gloryspren—and notably, it didn’t seem different from ordinary ones.

“But there is something we have to face,” Adolin continued. “Have you listened to the list of charges that ardent—the one who got executed—made against the queen?”

“I … Yes.”

“Ten glyphs,” Adolin said, “denouncing Aesudan’s excess. Wasting food while people starved. Increasing taxes, then throwing lavish parties for her ardents. Elhokar, this started long before the Everstorm.”

“We can … ask her,” the king said. “Once she is safe. Something must have been wrong. Aesudan was always proud, and always ambitious, but never gluttonous.” He eyed Adolin. “I know that Jasnah says I shouldn’t have married her—that Aesudan was too hungry for power. Jasnah never understood. I needed Aesudan. Someone with strength…” He took a deep breath, then stood up. “We mustn’t waste time. The plan. Do you agree with it?”

“I like it,” Shallan said.

Kaladin nodded. “It’s too general, but it’s at least a line of attack. Additionally, we need to trace the grain in the city. Yokska says the lighteyes provide it, but she also says the palace stores are closed.”

“You think someone has a Soulcaster?” Adolin asked.

“I think this city has too many secrets,” Kaladin said.

“Adolin and I shall ask the lighteyes, and see if they know,” Elhokar said, then looked to Shallan. “The Cult of Moments?”

“I’ll get on it,” she said. “I need a new coat anyway.”

*

She slipped out of the building again as Veil. She wore the trousers and her coat, though that now had a hole in the back. Ishnah had been able to wash the blood off, but Veil still wanted to replace it. For now, she covered the hole with a Lightweaving.

Veil sauntered down the street, and found herself feeling increasingly confident. Back in Urithiru, she’d still been struggling to get her coat on straight, so to speak. She winced as she thought of her trips through the bars, making a fool of herself. You didn’t need to prove how much you could drink in order to look tough—but that was the sort of thing you couldn’t learn without wearing the coat, living in it.

She turned toward the market, where she hoped to get a feel for Kholinar’s people. She needed to know how they thought before she could begin to understand how the Cult of Moments had come to be, and therefore how to infiltrate it.

This market was very different from those at Urithiru, or the night markets of Kharbranth. First off, this one was obviously ancient. These worn, weathered shops felt like they’d been here for the first Desolation. These were stones smoothed by the touch of a million fingers, or indented by the press of thousands of passing feet. Awnings bleached by the progression of day after day.

The street was wide, and not crowded. Some stalls were empty, and the remaining merchants didn’t shout at her as she passed. These seemed effects of the smothered sensation everyone felt—the feeling of a city besieged.

Yokska served only men, and Veil wouldn’t have wanted to reveal herself to the woman anyway. So she stopped at a clothier and tried on some new coats. She chatted with the woman who ran the accounts—her husband was the actual tailor—and got some suggestions on where to look for a coat matching her current one, then stepped back out onto the street.

Soldiers in light blue patrolled here, the glyphs on their uniforms proclaiming them to be of House Velalant. Yokska had described their brightlord as a minor player in the city until so many lighteyes had vanished into the palace.

Veil shivered, remembering the line of corpses. Adolin and Elhokar were fairly certain those were the remnants of a distant Kholin and his attendants—a man named Kaves, who had often tried to gain power in the city. Neither were sad to see him go, but it whispered of a continuing mystery. More than thirty people had gone to meet with the queen, many more powerful than Kaves. What had happened to them?

She passed an assortment of vendors peddling the usual range of necessities and curiosities, from ceramics to dining wares, to fine knives. It was nice to see that here, the soldiers had imposed some semblance of order. Perhaps rather than fixating on the closed stalls, Veil should have appreciated how many were still open.

The third clothing shop finally had a coat she liked, of the same style as her old one—white and long, past her knees. She paid to have it taken in, then casually asked the seamstress about the city’s grain.

The answers led her one street over to a grain station. It had formerly been a Thaylen bank, with the words Secure Keeps across the top in Thaylen and the women’s script. The proprietors had long ago fled—moneylenders seemed to have a sixth sense for impending danger, the way some animals could sense a storm hours before it arrived.

The soldiers in light blue had appropriated it, and the vaults now protected precious grain. People waited in line outside, and at the front, soldiers doled out enough lavis for one day’s flatbread and gruel.

It was a good sign—if a distinct and terrible reminder of the city’s situation. She would have applauded Velalant’s kindness, save for his soldiers’ blatant incompetence. They shouted at everyone to stay in line, but didn’t do anything to enforce the order. They did have a scribe watching to make sure nobody got in line twice, but they didn’t exclude people who were obviously too well-to-do to need the handout.

Veil glanced around the market, and noted people watching from the crannies and hollows of abandoned stalls. The poor and unwanted, those destitute beyond even the refugees. Tattered clothing, dirty faces. They watched like spren drawn by a powerful emotion.

Veil settled down on a low wall beside a drainage trough. A boy huddled nearby, watching the line with hungry eyes. One of his arms ended in a twisted, unusable hand: three fingers mere nubs, the other two crooked.

She fished in her trouser pocket. Shallan didn’t carry food, but Veil knew the importance of having something to chew on. She could have sworn she’d tucked something in while getting ready.… There it was. A meat stick, Soulcast but flavored with sugar. Not quite large enough to be a sausage. She bit off an end, then wagged the rest toward the urchin.

The boy sized her up, probably trying to determine her angle. Finally he crept over and took the offering, quickly stuffing the whole thing into his mouth. He waited, eyeing her to see if she had more.

“Why don’t you get in line?” Veil asked.

“They got rules. Gotta be a certain age. And if you’re too poor, they shove ya out of line.”

“For what reason?”

The boy shrugged. “Don’t need one, I guess. They say you’ve already been through, ’cept you haven’t.”

“Many of those people … they’re servants from wealthy homes, aren’t they?”