Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

Behind them, Nananav burst out of the building, her hair wobbling. “Stop them! Thieves!”

“Shallan?” Vathah asked. “Veil? Whoever you are? Storms, they have crossbows!”

Shallan breathed out.

The gates clanged shut ahead of them. Armed guards entered the small courtyard, weapons ready.

“Shallan!” Vathah cried.

She stood on the wagon, Stormlight swirling around her. The chull pulled to a stop, and she confronted the guards. The men stumbled to a halt, jaws dropping.

Behind, Nananav broke the silence. “What are you idiots doing? Why…”

She trailed off, then pulled up short as Shallan turned to look at her. Wearing the woman’s face.

Same hair. Same features. Same clothing. Mimicked right down to the attitude, with nose in the air. Shallan/Nananav raised her hands to the side, and spren burst from the ground around the wagon. Pools of blood, shimmering the wrong color, and boiling far too violently. Pieces of glass that rained down. Anticipationspren, like thin tentacles.

Shallan/Nananav let her image distort, features sliding off her face, dripping down like paint running down a wall. Ordinary Nananav screamed and fled back toward the building. One of the guards loosed his crossbow, and the bolt took Shallan/Nananav right in the head.

Bother.

Her vision went dark for a moment, and she had a flash of panic remembering her stabbing in the palace. But why should she care if actual painspren joined the illusory ones around her? She righted herself and looked back toward the soldiers, her face melting, the crossbow bolt sticking from her temple.

The guards ran.

“Vathah,” she said, “plesh open sha gate.” Her mouth didn’t work right. How odd.

Vathah didn’t move, so she glared at him.

“Gah!” he shouted, scrambling back and stumbling across one of the rugs in the bed of the wagon. He fell down beside Red, who was surrounded by fearspren, like globs of goo. Even Ishnah looked as if she’d seen a Voidbringer.

Shallan let the illusions go, all of them, right down to Veil. Just normal, everyday Veil. “Itsh all right,” Veil said. “Jush illushionsh. Go, open sha gatesh.”

Vathah heaved himself out of the wagon and ran for the gates.

“Um, Veil?” Red said. “That crossbow bolt … the blood is staining your outfit.”

“I wash going to shrow it away regardlesh,” she said, settling back down, growing more comfortable as Pattern rejoined the wagon and scuttled across the seat to her. “I’ve got a new outfit almosht ready.”

At this rate, she’d have to buy them in bulk.

They maneuvered the wagon out the gates, then picked up Vathah. No guards gave pursuit, and Veil’s mind … drifted as they pulled away.

That … that crossbow bolt was getting annoying. She couldn’t feel her safehand. Bother. She poked at the bolt; it seemed that her Stormlight had healed her head around the wound. She gritted her teeth and tried to pull it out, but the thing was jammed in there. Her vision blurred again.

“I’m going to need shome help, boysh,” she said, pointing at it and drawing in more Stormlight.

She blacked out entirely when Vathah pulled it free. She came to a short time later, slumped in the front seat of the wagon. When she brushed the side of her head with her fingers, she found no hole.

“You worry me sometimes,” Vathah said, steering the chull with a reed.

“I do what needs to be done,” Veil said, relaxing back and setting her feet up on the front of the wagon. Was it only her imagination, or did the people lining the streets today look hungrier than they had previous days? Hungerspren buzzed about the heads of the people, like black specks, or little flies of the type you could find sometimes on rotting plants. Children cried in the laps of exhausted mothers.

Veil turned away, ashamed, thinking of the food she had hidden in the wagon. How much good could she do with all of that? How many tears could she dry, how many of the hungry cries of children could she silence?

Steady …

Infiltrating the Cult of Moments was a greater good than feeding a few mouths now. She needed this food to buy her way in. To investigate … the Heart of the Revel, as Wit had called it.

Veil didn’t know much of the Unmade. She’d never paid attention to the ardents on important matters, let alone when they spoke of old folktales and stories of Voidbringers. Shallan knew little more, and wanted to find a book about the subject, of course.

Last night, Veil had returned to the inn where Shallan had met with the King’s Wit, and while he hadn’t been there, he’d left a message for her.

I’m still trying to get you a contact among the cult’s highers. Everyone I talk to merely says, “Do something to get their attention.” I would, but I’m certain that violating the city’s indecency laws would be unwise, even considering the lack of a proper watch.

Do something to get their attention. They seemed to have their fingers in everything, in this city. Kind of like the Ghostbloods. Watching secretly.

Maybe she didn’t need to wait for Wit. And maybe she could solve two problems at once.

“Take us to the Ringington Market,” she said to Vathah, naming the market closest to the tailor’s shop.

“Aren’t we going to unload the food before we return the wagon to that merchant?”

“Of course we are,” she said.

He eyed her, but when she didn’t explain further, he turned the wagon as she directed. Veil took her hat and coat from the back of the wagon and pulled them on, then covered the bloodstains on her shirt with a Lightweaving.

She had Vathah pull up to a specific building in the market. When they stopped, refugees peeked into the wagon bed, but saw only rugs—and they scattered when Vathah glared at them.

“Guard the wagon,” Veil said, digging out a small sack of food. She hopped down and went sauntering toward the building. The roof had been ruined by the Everstorm, making it a perfect place for squatters. She found Grund inside the main room, as usual.

She’d returned several times during her time in the city, getting information from Grund—who was the grimy little urchin she’d bribed with food on her first day in the market. He seemed to always be hanging around here, and Veil was well aware of the value of having a local urchin to ply for information.

Today, he was alone in the room. The other beggars were out hunting food. Grund drew on a little board with charcoal, using his one good hand, the deformed one hidden in his pocket. He perked up as soon as he saw her. He’d stopped running away; it seemed that city urchins got concerned when someone was actively looking for them.

That changed when they knew you had food.

He tried to look uninterested until Veil dropped the sack in front of him. A sausage peeked out. Then, his dark eyes practically bulged out of his face.

“An entire sack?” Grund asked.

“It was a good day,” Veil said, squatting down. “Any news for me on those books?”