Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,161

found two of the peakspren sailors watching him.

“Your deadeye,” one said, scratching at his stone head with a sound of rock on rock. “I’ve never seen one trained so well.”

“She’s not trained,” Adolin said. “She wanted to help, so I showed her how.”

One sailor looked to the other, then shook his head. They said something in a language Adolin didn’t understand, but they seemed unnerved by Maya, giving her a wide berth as they continued about their duties.

Adolin sipped from his canteen, watching as the pillar retreated. He could barely make out the glow of the tower city far above, dwindling as they moved.

I’ll do my part, Father, Adolin thought. I’ll give them your letters, but I’ll do more. I’ll find a way to persuade them to help us. And I’ll do it my way.

The trick, of course, was to discover what his way was in the first place.

* * *

Shallan knelt before her trunk as everyone else unpacked and Adolin brushed his horse. She tried not to panic. She failed. So she settled for seeming like she wasn’t panicking.

While packing her things, she’d taken a Memory of Mraize’s communication cube, packed away in her trunk. With her uncanny abilities, she could picture it precisely where she’d placed it. She’d wanted to be extra careful, but she hadn’t thought the Memory would be relevant so quickly.

Because the cube had been moved. Not just shifted in among her things; it had been picked up and rotated. The face that had been up when she’d packed had a few faint scratches on it. That face was now to the side. An imperceptible difference; someone without her abilities would never have noticed.

Someone had moved the cube. Somehow, between packing and arriving on the barge, someone had rifled through her things and used the cube.

She could come to only one conclusion. The spy was indeed on this mission—and they were using this very device to report to Mraize.

Much as you indicate, there is a division among the other Shards I would not have anticipated.

Kaladin pulled the bandage snug on the boy’s ankle. “Next time, Adin,” he said, “take the steps one at a time.”

The youth nodded solemnly. He was perhaps twelve or thirteen. “One at a time. Until I get my spren.”

“Oh? Your spren?”

“I’m gonna be a Windrunner,” the boy said. “Then I’ll float down steps.”

“That’s what it means to be a Radiant, is it?” Kaladin asked, standing. “Floating.”

“That, and you can stick your friends to the walls if they argue with you,” he said. “A Windrunner told me.”

“Let me guess. Short fellow. Herdazian. Big smile?”

“Yup.”

“Well, until then,” Kaladin said, “I need you to keep your weight off that foot.” He looked to the father, standing nearby, his trousers marked with potter’s crem. “That means a crutch if he has to walk somewhere. Come back and see me in a week; his progress will let us know for certain it didn’t fracture.”

The father helped his son with a thankful murmur. As they left, Kaladin dutifully washed his hands in the exam room’s basin. He’d picked up his father’s mannerisms in that regard. Wisdom of the Heralds, it was said. He’d met some of those Heralds now, and they didn’t seem so wise to him, but whatever.

It felt strange to be wearing a white surgeon’s apron. Lirin had always wanted one of these; he’d said white clothing made people calm. The traveling butchers or barbers—men who often did surgery or tooth work in small towns—tended to be dirty and bloody. Seeing a surgeon wearing white instantly proclaimed, “This isn’t that sort of place.”

He sent Hawin—the town girl who was reading for him today—to fetch the next patient. He dried his hands. Then, standing in the center of the small exam room, he released a long breath.

“Are you happy?” Syl asked, flitting into the room from the one next door, where she’d been watching his father work.

“I’m not sure,” Kaladin said. “I worry about the rest of them out there, going into battle without me. But it’s good to do something, Syl. Something that helps, but doesn’t wring me out like an old washrag.”

Near the end of his time as a Windrunner, he’d found even simple sparring to be emotionally taxing. Daily activities, like assigning duties, had required so much effort that they’d left him with a pounding headache. He couldn’t explain why.

This work—rememorizing medical texts, seeing patients, dealing with difficult parents or lighteyes—should have been worse. It wasn’t. Busy, but not overwhelmed, Kaladin never saw