Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

The urchin nodded.

Storming lighteyes, Veil thought as she watched. Some of the poor were shoved out of line for one infraction or another, as the urchin had claimed. The others waited patiently, as it was their job. They’d been sent by wealthy homes to collect food. Many bore the lean, strong look of house guards, though they didn’t wear uniforms.

Storms. Velalant’s men really had no idea how to do this. Or maybe they know exactly what they’re doing, she thought. And Velalant is just keeping the local lighteyes happy and ready to support his rule, should the winds turn his way.

It made Veil sick. She fished out a second meat stick for the urchin, then started to ask him how far Velalant’s influence reached—but the kid was gone in a heartbeat.

The grain distribution ended, and a lot of unhappy people called out in despair. The soldiers said they’d do another handout in the evening, and counseled people to line up and wait. Then the bank closed its doors.

But where did Velalant get the food? Veil rose and continued through the market, passing pools of angerspren. Some looked like the normal pools of blood; others were more like tar, pitch-black. When the bubbles in these popped, they showed a burning red within, like embers. Those vanished as people settled down to wait—and exhaustionspren appeared instead.

Her optimism about the market evaporated. She passed crowds milling about, looking lost, and read depression in people’s eyes. Why try to pretend life could go on? They were doomed. The Voidbringers were going to rip this city apart—if they didn’t simply let everyone starve.

Someone needed to do something. Veil needed to do something. Infiltrating the Cult of Moments suddenly seemed too abstract. Couldn’t she do something directly for these poor people? Except … she hadn’t even been able to save her own family. She had no idea what Mraize had done with her brothers, and she refused to think about them. How would she save an entire city?

She shouldered through the crowd, seeking freedom, suddenly feeling trapped. She needed out. She—

What was that sound?

Shallan pulled up short, turning, hearing. Storms. It couldn’t be, could it? She drifted toward the sound, that voice.

“You say that, my dear man,” it proclaimed, “but everyone thinks they know the moons. How could they not? We live beneath their gaze each night. We’ve known them longer than our friends, our wives, our children. And yet … and yet…”

Shallan pushed through the milling crowd to find him sitting on the low wall around a storm cistern. A metal brazier burned before him, emitting thin lines of smoke that twisted in the wind. He was dressed, strangely, in a soldier’s uniform—Sadeas’s livery, with the coat unbuttoned and a colored scarf around his neck.

The traveler. The one they called the King’s Wit. Angular features, a sharp nose, hair that was stark black.

He was here.

“There are still stories to tell.” Wit leaped to his feet. Few people were paying attention. To them, he was just another busker. “Everyone knows that Mishim is the cleverest of the three moons. Though her sister and brother are content to reign in the sky—gracing the lands below with their light—Mishim is always looking for a chance to escape her duty.”

Wit tossed something into the brazier, producing a bright green puff of smoke the color of Mishim, the third and slowest of the moons.

“This story takes place during the days of Tsa,” Wit continued. “The grandest queen of Natanatan, before that kingdom’s fall. Blessed with grand poise and beauty, the Natan people were famous across all of Roshar. Why, if you’d lived back then, you’d have viewed the east as a place of great culture, not an empty wasteland!

“Queen Tsa, as you’ve doubtless heard, was an architect. She designed high towers for her city, built to reach ever upward, grasping toward the sky. One night, Tsa rested in her greatest tower, enjoying the view. So it was that Mishim, that clever moon, happened to pass in the sky close by. (It was a night when the moons were large, and these—everyone knows—are nights when the moons pay special attention to the actions of mortals.)

“ ‘Great Queen!’ Mishim called. ‘You build such fine towers in your grand city. I enjoy viewing them each night as I pass.’ ”

Wit dropped powder into the brazier, this time in clumps that caused two lines of smoke—one white, one green—to stream upward. Shallan stepped forward, watching the smoke curl. The marketgoers slowed, and began to gather.

“Now,” Wit said, thrusting his hands into the smoke lines, twisting them so that the smoke swirled and contorted, giving the sense of a green moon spinning in the center, “Queen Tsa was hardly ignorant of Mishim’s crafty ways. The Natans were never fond of Mishim, but rather revered the great Nomon.

“Still, one does not ignore a moon. ‘Thank you, Great Celestial One,’ Tsa called. ‘Our engineers labor ceaselessly to erect the most splendid of mortal accomplishments.’

“ ‘Almost they reach to my domain,’ Mishim called. ‘One wonders if you are trying to obtain it.’

“ ‘Never, Great Celestial One. My domain is this land, and the sky is yours.’ ”

Wit thrust his hand high in his smoke, drawing the line of white into the shape of a straight pillar. His other hand swirled a pocket of green above it, like a whirlpool. A tower and a moon.

That can’t be natural, can it? Shallan thought. Is he Lightweaving? Yet she saw no Stormlight. There was something more … organic about what he did. She couldn’t be completely certain it was supernatural.

“As always, Mishim was hatching a scheme. She loathed being hung in the sky each night, far from the delights of the world below, and the pleasures that only mortals know. The next night, Mishim again passed Queen Tsa in her tower. ‘It is a pity,’ Mishim said, ‘that you cannot see the constellations from up close. For they are truly beautiful gemstones, shaped by the finest of gem cutters.’

“ ‘It is a pity,’ Tsa said. ‘But all know that the eyes of a mortal would burn to see such a lofty sight.’

“On the next night, Mishim tried again. ‘It is a pity,’ she said, ‘that you cannot converse with the starspren, as they tell delightsome stories.’

“ ‘It is a pity,’ Tsa agreed. ‘But everyone knows that the language of the heavens would drive a mortal mad.’

“The next night, Mishim tried a third time. ‘It is a pity that you cannot see the beauty of your kingdom from above. For the pillars and domes of your city are radiant.’

“ ‘It is a pity,’ Tsa agreed. ‘But those sights are meant for the great ones of heaven, and to behold them myself would be blasphemous.’ ”