toward a bearded male honorspren. Shallan recognized him as Sekeir, the one who had acted as prosecutor against Adolin on the first day of the trial. An important spren, perhaps the most important in the fortress. And one of the oldest ones.
“I think, Honored One,” Sekeir said softly, “that you might be having another bout of your weakness. We shall have to sequester you, I’m afraid. For your own good…”
Nevertheless, I’m writing answers for you here, because something glimmers deep within me. A fragment of a memory of what I once was.
I was there when Ba-Ado-Mishram was captured. I know the truth of the Radiants, the Recreance, and the Nahel spren.
Adolin made no effort to arrive early to the last day of the trial. Indeed, each footstep felt leaden as he trudged toward the forum. He could see from a distance that the place was crowded—with even more spren gathered at the top of the steps than yesterday. Nearly every honorspren in the fortress had come to watch him be judged.
Though he didn’t relish facing them, he also couldn’t give up this opportunity. It was his last chance to speak for himself, for his people. He had to believe that some of them were listening.
And if he lost? If he was condemned to imprisonment? Would he let Shallan rescue him, as she’d offered?
If I did, he thought, I would prove what the leaders of the honorspren have been saying all along: Men aren’t worthy of trust. What if the only way to win here was to accept their judgment? To spend years in a cell?
After all, what else are you good for, Adolin? The world needed Radiants, not princes—particularly not ones who had refused the throne. Perhaps the best thing he could do for humanity was become a living testimony of their honor.
That thought troubled him as he reached the crowd. They parted for him, nudging one another, falling silent as he descended.
Storms, I wasn’t built for problems like this, Adolin thought. He hadn’t slept well—and he worried about the way Shallan had been acting lately. She wasn’t sitting in her spot, and neither was Pattern. Was she going to skip this most important day of the trial?
He was about halfway down the steps when he noticed another oddity: Kelek wasn’t there. Sekeir—the aged honorspren with the long beard—had taken his place. He waved for Adolin to continue.
Adolin reached the floor of the forum and walked over to the judge’s seat. “Where is Kelek?”
“The Holy One is indisposed,” Sekeir said. “Your wife went to him in secret and tried to influence the course of the trial.”
Adolin felt a spike of joy. So that was what she’d been up to.
“Do not smile,” Sekeir said. “We discovered a weapon of curious design, perhaps used to intimidate the Holy One. Your wife is being held, and the Holy One is … suffering from his long time as a Herald.
“We have relieved him as High Judge, and I will sit in his place. You will find the documentation on your seat, to be read to you if you wish. The trial will continue under my direction. I am a far lesser being, but I will not be as … lax as he was.”
Great, Adolin thought. Wonderful. He tried to find a way to use this to his advantage. Could he stall? Make some kind of plea? He looked at the audience and saw trouble, division. Perhaps he was a fool, but it seemed like some of them wanted to listen. Wanted to believe him. Those felt fewer than yesterday; so many others watched him with outright hostility.
So how could Adolin reach them?
Sekeir started the trial by calling for silence, something Kelek had never bothered to do. Apparently the hush that fell over the crowd wasn’t enough, for Sekeir had three different spren ejected for whispering to one another.
That done, the overstuffed spren stood up and read off a prepared speech. And storms, did it go on. Windy passages about how Adolin had brought this upon himself, about how it was good that humans finally had a chance to pay for their sins.
“Do we need this?” Adolin interrupted as Sekeir paused for effect. “We all know what you’re going to do. Be on with it.”
The new High Judge waved to the side. A spren stepped up beside Adolin, a white cloth in her hands. A gag. She pulled it tight between her hands, as if itching for a chance.
“You may speak during the questioning of