Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,577

is, I don’t think either of us know. And I’m not exactly an expert on all this.”

“Recent events considered? I think you’re the only expert.” Shallan reached up and cupped his face. “Thank you, Adolin.”

“For?”

“Being you. I’m sorry for the secrets.”

“You did tell me,” he said. “Eventually.” He nodded toward the knife with the gemstone, still unused, which rested beside her open notebook on one side of the table. The cube Mraize had sent rested on the other side. “The bells are ringing. Time?”

She removed her hand and situated herself at the desk. Adolin fell silent, waiting and watching as Shallan lifted the top of Mraize’s cube. With help from Kelek, they’d gotten it open without harming the thing inside: a spren in the shape of a glowing ball of light, a strange symbol at the center. No one here recognized the variety of spren, but Wit called it a seon.

“Are you well, Ala?” Shallan asked. It was said like A-lay.

“Yes,” the spren whispered.

“You can come out of the cube. You don’t need to live in there anymore.”

“I’m … supposed to stay. I’m not supposed to talk. To you. To anyone.”

Shallan glanced at Adolin. The odd spren resisted attempts to get it free. It acted … like an abused child.

Another in the list of Mraize’s crimes, Radiant thought.

Agreed, Shallan replied.

Radiant remained. They agreed that once they found the right path, she would eventually be absorbed as Veil had been. For now, Shallan’s wounds were still fresh. Practically bleeding. But what she’d done would finally let her begin to heal. And she knew why Pattern had always been so certain she would kill him. And why he’d acted like a newly bonded spren when she’d begun noticing him on the ship with Jasnah. The simple answer was the true one. He had been newly bonded.

And Shallan had not one Shardblade, but two.

She still had questions. Things about her past didn’t completely align yet, though her memory was no longer full of holes. There was much they didn’t understand. For example, she was certain that, during the years between killing Testament and finding Pattern, her powers had still functioned in some small ways.

Some of this, Kelek said, had to do with the nature of deadeyes. Before the Recreance, they had never existed. Kelek said he thought this was why Mraize was hunting him. Something to do with the fall of the singers, and the Knights Radiant, so long ago—and the imprisoning of a specific spren.

“Contact Mraize please, spren,” she whispered to the ball of light. “It is time.”

The ball floated into the air, and the next part took barely a moment. The globe of light shifted to make a version of his face speaking to her. “Little knife,” the face said in Mraize’s voice. “I trust the deed has been done?”

“I did it,” Shallan said. “It hurt so much. But she is gone.”

“Excellent. That … She, little knife?”

“Veil and I are one now, Mraize,” Shallan said, resting her hand on her notebook—which contained the fascinating things Kelek had told her about other worlds, other planets. Places he desperately wished to see.

Like the other Heralds, Kelek wasn’t entirely stable. He was unable to commit to ideas or plans. However, to one thing he had committed: He wanted off Roshar. He was convinced that Odium would soon take over the world completely and restart torturing all the Heralds. Kelek would do practically anything to escape that fate.

There was a long pause from Mraize. “Shallan,” he finally said, “we do not move against other Ghostbloods.”

“I’m not one of the Ghostbloods,” Shallan said. “None of us ever were, not fully. And now we are stepping away.”

“Don’t do this. Think of the cost.”

“My brothers? Is that what you’re referencing? You must know by now that they are no longer in the tower, Mraize. Pattern and Wit got them out before the occupation even occurred. Thank you for this seon, by the way. Wit says that unbound ones are difficult to come by—but they make for extremely handy communication across realms.”

“You will never have your answers, Shallan.”

“I have what I need, thank you very much,” she said as Adolin put a comforting hand on hers. “I’ve been speaking to Kelek, the Herald. He seems to think the reason you’re hunting him is because of an Unmade. Ba-Ado-Mishram? The one who Connected to the singers long ago, giving them forms of power? The one who, when trapped, stole the singers’ minds and made them into parshmen?

“Why do you want