Shallan walked past the small guest bed and looked out the window at a daunting view down a city street. So many homes, so many people. Intimidating.
Fortunately, Veil wouldn’t see it that way. There was only one problem.
I can’t work with this team, she thought, without them eventually asking questions. This Kholinar mission would bring it to a head, as Veil hadn’t flown with them.
She’d been dreading this. And … kind of … anticipating it? “I need to tell them,” she whispered.
“Mmm,” Pattern said. “It’s good. Progress.”
Rather, she’d been backed into a corner. Still, it had to be done eventually. She walked to her pack and removed a white coat and a hat, which folded up on its side. “Some privacy, boys,” she said to Vathah and Red. “Veil needs to get dressed.”
They looked from the coat to Shallan, then back. Red slapped the side of his head and laughed. “You’re kidding. Well, I feel like an idiot.”
She’d expected Vathah to feel betrayed. Instead he nodded—as if this made perfect sense. He saluted her with one finger, then the two men retreated.
Ishnah lingered. Shallan had—after some debate—decided to bring the woman. Mraize had vetted her, and in the end, Veil needed the training.
“You don’t look surprised about this,” Shallan said as she started changing.
“I was suspicious when Veil … when you told me to go on this mission,” she said. “Then I saw the illusions, and guessed.” She paused. “I had it reversed. I thought Brightness Shallan was the persona. But the spy—that’s the false identity.”
“Wrong,” Shallan said. “They’re both equally false.” Once dressed, she flipped through her sketchbook and found a drawing of Lyn in her scouting uniform. Perfect. “Go tell Brightlord Kaladin I’m already out and exploring, and that he should meet me in about an hour.”
She climbed out the window and dropped one story to the ground, relying on her Stormlight to keep her legs from breaking. Then she struck off down the street.
I returned to the tower to find squabbling children, instead of proud knights. That’s why I hate this place. I’m going to go chart the hidden undersea caverns of Aimia; find my maps in Akinah.
—From drawer 16-16, amethyst
Veil enjoyed being in a proper city again, even if it was half feral.
Most cities lived on the very edge of civilization. Everyone talked about towns and villages out in the middle of nowhere as if they were uncivilized, but she’d found people in those places pleasant, even-tempered, and comfortable with their quieter way of life.
Not in cities. Cities balanced on the edge of sustainability, always one step from starvation. When you pressed so many people together, their cultures, ideas, and stenches rubbed off on one another. The result wasn’t civilization. It was contained chaos, pressurized, bottled up so it couldn’t escape.
There was a tension to cities. You could breathe it, feel it in every step. Veil loved it.
Once a few streets from the tailor’s shop, she pulled down the brim of her hat and held up a page from her sketchbook as if consulting a map. This covered her as she breathed out Stormlight, transforming her features and hair to match those of Veil, instead of Shallan.
No spren came, screaming to warn of what she’d done. So Lightweaving was different from using fabrials. She’d been fairly certain it was safe, as they’d worn disguises into the city, but she’d wanted to be away from the tailor’s shop in case.
Veil strolled down the thoroughfare, long coat rippling around her calves. She decided immediately that she liked Kholinar. She liked how the city rolled across its hills, a lumpy blanket of buildings. She liked how it smelled of Horneater spices in one gust of wind, then of Alethi steamed crabs in the next. Admittedly, those probably weren’t proper crabs today, but cremlings.
That part she didn’t like. These poor people. Even in this more affluent area, she could barely walk a quarter block without having to weave around huddles of people. The midblock courtyards were clogged with what had probably been normal villagers not long ago, but who were now impoverished wretches.
There wasn’t much wheeled traffic on the streets. Some palanquins ringed by guards. No carriages. Life, however, did not stop for a war—or even for a second Aharietiam. There was water to draw, clothes to clean. Women’s work mostly, as she could see from the large groups of men standing around. With no one really in charge in the city, who would pay men to work forges? To clean streets or chip crem? Even worse, in a city this size, much of the menial labor would have been done by parshmen. Nobody would be eager to leap in to take their place.
The bridgeboy is right though, Veil thought, loitering at an intersection. The city is still being fed. A place like Kholinar could consume itself quickly, once the food or water ran out.
No, cities were not civilized places. No more than a whitespine was domesticated just because it had a collar around its neck.
A small group of cultists dressed as rotspren limped down the street, the wet red paint on their clothing evocative of blood. Shallan considered these people extreme and alarming, probably crazy, but Veil wasn’t convinced. They were too theatrical—and there were too many of them—for all to be truly deranged. This was a fad. A way of dealing with unexpected events and giving some shape to lives that had been turned upside down.
That didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. A group of people all trying to impress one another was always more dangerous than the lone psychopath. So she gave the cultists a wide berth.
Over the next hour, Veil surveyed the city while wending her way in the general direction of the palace. The area with the tailor’s shop was the most normal. It had a good functioning market, which she intended to investigate further when not pressed for time. It had parks, and though these had been appropriated by the crowds, the people in them were lively. Family groups—even communities transplanted from outer villages—doing the best they could.
She passed bunkerlike mansions of the wealthy. Several had been ransacked: gates broken down, window shutters cracked, grounds draped with blankets or shanties. Some lighteyed families, it seemed, hadn’t maintained enough guards to withstand the riots.
Anytime Veil’s path took her closer to the city walls, she entered sections of the city that were the most cramped, and the most despondent. Refugees just sitting on the streets. Vacant eyes, ragged clothing. People without homes or community.
The closer she drew to the palace though, the emptier the city became. Even the unfortunates who populated the streets near the walls—where the Voidbringers were raiding—knew to stay away from this area.
That made the homes of the wealthy here in the palace district seem … out of place. In normal times, living close to the palace would have been a privilege, and every large compound here had private walls that sheltered delicate gardens and ostentatious windows. But now, Veil felt the wrongness of the area as a prickling sensation on her skin. The families living here must have felt it, but they stubbornly remained in their mansions.
She peeked through the iron gate of one such mansion, and found soldiers on sentry duty: men in dark uniforms whose colors and heraldry she couldn’t discern. In fact, when one glanced at her, she couldn’t make out his eyes. It was probably just a trick of the light, but … storms. The soldiers had a wrongness about them; they moved oddly, rushing in bursts, like prowling predators. They didn’t stop to talk to each other as they passed.
She backed away and continued down the street. The palace was right ahead. Straight on in front of it were the wide steps where she’d meet Kaladin, but she had some time left. She slipped into a park nearby, the first she’d seen in the city that wasn’t clogged with refugees. Towering stumpweight trees—bred over time for height and spread of leaves—gave a shadowed canopy.
Away from potential prying eyes, she used Stormlight to overlay Veil’s features and clothing with those of Lyn. A stronger, more sturdy build, a blue scout’s uniform. Th
e hat became a black rain hat, of the type often worn during the Weeping.
She left the park as Veil playing a part. She tried to keep this distinction sharp in her mind. She was still Veil. Merely in disguise.
Now, to see what she could find out about the Oathgate. The palace was built on a rise overlooking the city, and she slipped through the streets to its eastern side, where she indeed found the Oathgate platform. It was covered in buildings, and was as high as the palace—maybe twenty feet up. It connected to the main palace by a covered walkway that rested atop a small wall.
They built that walkway right over the ramp, she thought with displeasure. The only other paths up onto the platform were sets of steps cut into the rock, and those were guarded by people in spren costumes.
Veil watched from a safe distance. So the cult was involved in this somehow? Above on the platform, smoke trailed from a large fire, and Veil could hear sounds rising from that direction. Were those … screams?
The whole place was unnerving, and she shivered, then retreated. She found Kaladin leaning against the base of a statue in a square before the palace steps. Soulcast out of bronze, the statue depicted a figure in Shardplate rising as if from waves.
“Hey,” she said softly. “It’s me. Do you like the boots on this outfit?” She raised her foot.
“Do we have to keep bringing that up?”
“I was giving you a passcode, bridgeboy,” she said. “To prove I’m who I say I am.”
“Lyn’s face made that clear,” he said, handing her the king’s letter, inside a sealed envelope.
I like him, Veil thought. An … odd thought, in how much stronger that feeling was to Veil than it had been to Shallan. I like that brooding sense he has about him, those dangerous eyes.
Why did Shallan focus so much on Adolin? He was nice, but also bland. You couldn’t tease him without feeling bad, but Kaladin, he glared at you in the most satisfying of ways.
The part of her that was still Shallan, deep down, was bothered by this line of thinking. So instead, Veil turned her attention to the palace. It was a grand structure, but more like a fortress than she’d pictured. Very Alethi. The bottom floor was a massive rectangle, with the short side facing toward the storm. The upper levels were successively thinner, and a dome rose from the center of the building.
From up close, she couldn’t make out exactly where the sunlight stopped and the shadow began. Indeed, the air of darkness felt … different from how Urithiru had when the dark spren was there. She kept feeling that she wasn’t seeing it all. When she’d glance away and look back, she could swear that something was different. Had that planter moved, the one running along the grand entry steps? Or … had that door always been painted blue?
She took a Memory, then looked away and back, and took another Memory. She wasn’t certain what good it would do, as she’d had trouble drawing the palace earlier.
“Do you see them?” Kaladin whispered. “The soldiers, standing between the pillars?”
She hadn’t. The front of the palace—at the top of the long set of stairs—was set with pillars. Looking closer into the shadows, she saw men in there, gathered beneath the overhang supported by the columns. They stood like statues, their spears upright, never moving.
Anticipationspren rose around Veil, and she jumped. While two of the spren looked normal—like flat streamers—the others were wrong. They waved long, thin tendrils that looked like lashes to whip a servant.
She shared a glance with Kaladin, then took a Memory of the spren.
“Shall we?” Kaladin asked.
“I shall. You stay here.”
He glanced at her.
“If something goes wrong, I’d rather you be ready out here to come in and help. Best not to potentially get us both stuck in the grip of one of the Unmade. I’ll shout if I need you.”
“And if you can’t shout? Or if I can’t hear you?”
“I’ll send Pattern.”
Kaladin folded his arms, but nodded. “Fine. Just be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, but he was thinking of Shallan. Veil wasn’t as foolhardy.
The climb up those steps seemed to take far too long. For a moment she could have sworn they stretched into the sky, toward the eternal void. And then she was atop them, standing before those pillars.
A group of guards approached her.
“I have a message from the king!” she said, holding it up. “To be delivered directly to Her Majesty. I’ve traveled all the way from the Shattered Plains!”
The guards didn’t break stride. One opened a door into the palace while the others formed up behind Veil, prodding her forward. She swallowed, sweat chilling her brow, and let them force her to that door. That maw …
She walked into a grand entryway, marked by marble and a brilliant sphere chandelier. No Unmade. No darkness waiting to consume her. She breathed out, though she could feel something. That phantom eeriness was indeed stronger here. The wrongness. She jumped when one of the soldiers put his hand on her shoulder.
A man in a captainlord’s knots left a small room beside the grand chamber. “What is this?”
“Messenger,” a soldier said. “From the Shattered Plains.” Another plucked the letter from her fingers and handed it toward the captainlord. She could see their eyes now, and they seemed ordinary—darkeyed grunts, lighteyed officer.
“Who was your commander there?” the captain asked her, looking over the letter, then squinting at the seal. “Well? I served on the Plains for a few years.”
“Captain Colot,” she said, naming the officer who had joined the Windrunners. He wasn’t Lyn’s actual commander, but he did have scouts in his team.
The captainlord nodded, then handed the letter to one of his men. “Take it to Queen Aesudan.”
“I was supposed to deliver it in person,” Veil said, though she itched to be out of this place. To flee madly, if she were being honest. She had to stay. Whatever she learned here would be of—
One of the soldiers ran her through.
It happened so quickly, she was left gaping at the sword blade protruding through her chest—wet with her blood. He yanked the weapon back out, and Veil collapsed with a groan. She reached for Stormlight, by instinct.
No … no, do as … as Jasnah did …
Pretend. Feign. She stared up at the men in horror, in betrayal, painspren rising around her. One soldier jogged off with the message, but the captain merely walked back toward his post. Not one of the rest said a word as she bled all over the floor, her vision fading …
She let her eyes close, then took in a short, sharp breath of Stormlight. Just a tiny amount, which she kept within, holding her breath. Enough to keep her alive, heal the wounds inside …
Pattern. Please don’t go. Don’t do anything. Don’t hum, don’t buzz. Quiet. Stay quiet.
One of the soldiers picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, then carried her through the palace. She dared cracking a single eye, and found the wide hallway here was lined with dozens upon dozens of soldiers. Just … standing there. They were alive; they’d cough, or shift position. Some leaned back against the wall, but they all kind of stayed in place. Human, but wrong.
The guard carrying her passed a floor-to-ceiling mirror rimmed in a fancy bronze frame. In it, she glimpsed the guard with Lyn thrown over his shoulder. And beyond that, deep within the mirror, something turned—the normal image fading—and looked toward Shallan with a sudden and surprised motion. It looked like a shadow of a person, only with white spots for eyes.
Veil quickly closed her peeking eye. Storms, what had that been?
Don’t shift. Stay perfectly still. Don’t even breathe. Stormlight allowed her to survive without air.
The guard carried her down some steps, then opened a door and walked down a few more. He dropped her none too gently onto the stone and tossed her hat on top of her, then turned and left, closing a door behind him.
&nbs
p; Veil waited as long as she could stand before opening her eyes and finding herself in darkness. She took a breath, and nearly choked at the rotten, musty stench. Dreading and suspecting what she might find, she drew in Stormlight and made herself glow.
She’d been dropped beside a small line of corpses. There were seven of them, three male and four female, wearing fine clothing—but covered in rotspren, their flesh chewed at by cremlings.
Holding in a scream, she scrambled to her feet. Perhaps … perhaps these were some of those lighteyes who’d come to the palace to talk to the queen?
She snatched her hat and scrambled to the steps. This was the wine cellar, a stone vault cut right into the rock. At the door she finally heard Pattern, who had been talking, though his voice had seemed distant.
“Shallan? I felt what you told me. Don’t go. Shallan, are you well? Oh! The destruction. You destroy some things, but seeing others destroyed upsets you. Hmmmm.…” He seemed pleased to have figured it out.
She focused on his voice, something familiar. Not the memory of a sword protruding from her own chest, not the callous way she’d been dumped here and left to rot, not the line of corpses with exposed bones, haunted faces, chewed-out eyes …
Don’t think. Don’t see it.
She shoved it all away, and rested her forehead against the door. Then she carefully eased it open and found an empty stone hallway beyond, with more steps leading upward.
There were too many soldiers that way. She put on a new illusion, of a servant woman from her sketchbook. Maybe that would be less suspicious. It covered the blood, at least.
She didn’t head back upstairs, but instead took a separate path farther into the tunnels. This turned out to be the Kholin mausoleum, which was lined with another kind of corpse: old kings turned to statues. Their stone eyes chased her down empty tunnels until she found a door that, judging from the sunlight underneath, led out into the city.
“Pattern,” she whispered. “Check for guards outside.”
He hummed and slid under the door, then returned a moment later. “Mmm … There are two.”