Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,420

speechless.

Deadeyes.

“Storms,” said Vaiu. “There are so many.”

Vaiu was Adolin’s primary jailer for excursions like this. He was a shorter honorspren and wore a full beard, squared like that of an ardent. Unlike many others, Vaiu preferred to go about bare-chested, wearing only an old-style skirt a little like an Alethi takama. With his winged spear, he seemed like a depiction of a Herald from some ancient painting.

“What happened to the ones you let in?” Adolin asked.

“We put them with the others,” Vaiu explained. “Everything about them seems normal, for deadeyes. Though we don’t have space left for more. We never expected…” He shook his head. There were no lights of souls near those deadeyes; this wasn’t a gathering of Shardbearers in the Physical Realm. The deadeyes were moving of their own accord, coming up from the depths to stand out here. Silent. Watching.

The fortress had quarters for deadeyes. Though Adolin had little love for these honorspren and their stubbornness, he had to admit there was honor in the way they treated fallen spren. The honorspren had dedicated themselves to finding and caring for as many as they could. Though they’d taken Maya and put her in with the others, they let Adolin visit her each morning to do their exercises together. While they wouldn’t let her wander free, she was treated quite well.

But what would they do with so many? The honorspren had taken in the first group, but as more and more deadeyes arrived, the fortress had reluctantly shut its gates to them.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Vaiu said. “They should all be wandering the oceans, not congregating here. What provoked this behavior?”

“Has anyone tried asking them?” Adolin asked.

“Deadeyes can’t talk.”

Adolin leaned forward. Around his hands on the railing, pink crystal fuzz began to grow: the Shadesmar version of moss, spreading because of the crystalline day.

The distance was too great for him to distinguish one scratched-out face from another. However, he did notice when one vanished into mist. Those spren were Shardblades—hundreds of them, more than he’d known existed. When their owners summoned them, their bodies evaporated from Shadesmar. Why were they here? Deadeyes usually tried to keep close to their owners, wandering through the ocean of beads.

“There is a Connection happening,” Vaiu said. “Deadeyes cannot think, but they are still spren—bound to the spiritweb of Roshar herself. They can feel what is happening in this keep, that justice will finally be administered.”

“If you can call it justice,” Adolin said, “to punish a man for what his ancestors did.”

“You are the one who suggested this course, human,” Vaiu said. “You took their sins upon you. This trial cannot possibly make remediation for the thousands murdered, but the deadeyes sense what is happening here.”

Adolin glanced at his other guard, Alvettaren. She wore a breastplate and a steel cap—both formed from her substance, of course—above close-cropped hair. As usual she stared forward, her lips closed. She rarely had anything to add.

“It is time for today’s legal training,” Vaiu said. “You have very little time until the High Judge returns and your trial begins. You had best spend it studying instead of staring at the deadeyes. Let’s go.”

* * *

Veil was really starting to hate this fortress. Lasting Integrity was built like a storming monolith, a stupid brick of a building with no windows. It was impossible to feel anything other than trapped while inside these walls.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was how honorspren had no respect whatsoever for the laws of nature. Veil opened the door from the small building she shared with Adolin, looking out at what seemed to be an ordinary street. A walkway of worked stone led from her front door and passed by several other small buildings before dead-ending at a wall.

However, as soon as she stepped out, her brain started to panic. Another flat surface of stone hung in the air above her, instead of the sky. It was clustered with its own buildings—and people, mostly honorspren, walked along its pathways. To her left and right were two other surfaces, much the same.

The actual sky was behind her. She was walking on the inside surface of one of the walls of the fortress. It squeezed her mind, making her tremble. Shallan, Veil thought, you should be leading. You’d like the way this place looks.

Shallan did not respond. She huddled deep within, refusing to emerge. Ever since they’d discovered that Pattern had been lying to them, probably for years, she had become increasingly