Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive #3)

She pulled at her hair, pleased to see it had turned black. She had become Veil, a disguise she’d been working on for some time.

Shallan held up hands that were callused and worked—even the safehand. Not that Veil was unfeminine. She kept her nails filed, and liked to dress nicely, keep her hair brushed. She simply didn’t have time for frivolities. A good sturdy coat and trousers suited Veil better than a flowing havah. And she had no time for an extended sleeve covering her safehand. She’d wear a glove, thank you very much.

At the moment she was dressed in her nightgown; she’d change later, once she was ready to sneak out into Urithiru’s halls. She needed some practice first. Though she felt bad about the use of Stormlight when everyone else was scrimping, Dalinar had told her to train with her powers.

She strode through her chamber, adopting Veil’s gait—confident and sturdy, never prim. You couldn’t balance a book on Veil’s head as she walked, but she’d happily balance one on your face after she knocked you unconscious.

She circled the room several times, crossing the patch of evening light from the window. Her room was ornamented by bright circular patterns of strata on the walls. The stone was smooth to the touch, and a knife couldn’t scratch it.

There wasn’t much furniture, though Shallan was hopeful that the latest scavenging expeditions to the warcamps would return with something she could appropriate from Sebarial. For now she did what she could with some blankets, a single stool, and—blessedly—a hand mirror. She’d hung it on the wall, tied to a stone knob that she assumed was for hanging pictures.

She checked her face in the mirror. She wanted to get to the point where she could become Veil at a moment’s notice, without needing to review sketches. She prodded at her features, but of course as the more angular nose and pronounced forehead were a result of Lightweaving, she couldn’t feel them.

When she frowned, Veil’s face mimicked the motion perfectly. “Something to drink, please,” she said. No, rougher. “Drink. Now.” Too strong?

“Mmm,” Pattern said. “The voice becomes a good lie.”

“Thank you. I’ve been working on sounds.” Veil’s voice was deeper than Shallan’s, rougher. She’d started to wonder, how far could she go in changing how things sounded?

For now, she wasn’t sure she’d gotten the lips right in the illusion. She sauntered over to her art supplies and flipped open her sketchbook, looking for renditions of Veil she’d drawn instead of going to dinner with Sebarial and Palona.

The first page of the sketchbook was of the corridor with the twisting strata she’d passed through the other day: lines of madness curling toward darkness. She flipped to the next, a picture of one of the tower’s budding markets. Thousands of merchants, washwomen, prostitutes, innkeepers, and craftsmen of all varieties were setting up in Urithiru. Shallan knew well how many—she’d been the one to bring them all through the Oathgate.

In her sketch, the black upper reaches of the large market cavern loomed over tiny figures scurrying between tents, holding fragile lights. The next was another tunnel into darkness. And the next. Then a room where the strata coiled about one another in a mesmerizing manner. She hadn’t realized she’d done so many. She flipped twenty pages before she found her sketches of Veil.

Yes, the lips were right. The build was wrong, however. Veil had a lean strength, and that wasn’t coming through in the nightgown. It looked too much like Shallan’s figure beneath.

Someone knocked on the wooden plate hung outside her rooms. She had just a cloth draping the doorway right now. Many of the tower’s doors had warped over the years; hers had been ripped out, and she was still waiting on a replacement.

The one knocking would be Palona, who had once again noticed that Shallan had skipped dinner. Shallan sucked in a breath, destroying the image of Veil, recovering some of the Stormlight from her Lightweaving. “Come,” she said. Honestly, it didn’t seem to matter to Palona that Shallan was a storming Knight Radiant now, she’d still mother her all the—

Adolin stepped in, carrying a large plate of food in one hand, some books under the other arm. He saw her and stumbled, nearly dropping it all.

Shallan froze, then yelped and tucked her bare safehand behind her back. Adolin didn’t even have the decency to blush at finding her practically naked. He balanced the food in his hand, recovering from his stumble, and then grinned.

“Out!” Shallan said, waving her freehand at him. “Out, out, out!”

He backed away awkwardly, through the draped cloth over the doorway. Stormfather! Shallan’s blush was probably so bright they could have used her as a signal to send the army to war. She pulled on a glove, then wrapped that in a safepouch, then threw on the blue dress she had draped over the back of her chair and did up the sleeve. She didn’t have the presence of mind to pull on her bodice vest first, not that she really needed one anyway. She kicked it under a blanket instead.

“In my defense,” Adolin said from outside, “you did invite me in.”

“I thought you were Palona!” Shallan said, doing up the buttons on the side of her dress—which proved difficult, with three layers covering her safehand.

“You know, you could check to see who is at your door.”

“Don’t make this my fault,” Shallan said. “You’re the one slipping into young ladies’ bedrooms practically unannounced.”

“I knocked!”

“The knock was feminine.”

“It was … Shallan!”

“Did you knock with one hand or two?”

“I’m carrying a storming platter of food—for you, by the way. Of course the knock was one-handed. And seriously, who knocks with two?”

“It was quite feminine, then. I’d have thought that imitating a woman to catch a glimpse of a young lady in her undergarments was beneath you, Adolin Kholin.”

“Oh, for Damnation’s sake, Shallan. Can I come in now? And just so we’re clear, I’m a man and your betrothed, my name is Adolin Kholin, I was born under the sign of the nine, I have a birthmark on the back of my left thigh, and I had crab curry for breakfast. Anything else you need to know?”

She poked her head out, pulling the cloth tight around her neck. “Back of your left thigh, eh? What’s a girl got to do to sneak a glimpse of that?”

“Knock like a man, apparently.”

She gave him a grin. “Just a sec. This dress is being a pain.” She ducked back into the room.

“Yes, yes. Take your time. I’m not standing out here holding a heavy platter of food, smelling it after having skipped dinner so I could dine with you.”

“It’s good for you,” Shallan said. “Builds strength, or something. Isn’t that the sort of thing you do? Strangle rocks, stand on your head, throw boulders around.”

“Yes, I have quite my share of murdered rocks stuffed under my bed.”