Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,61

did to Sadeas?”

“He was a soldier,” Adolin said. “That’s what makes it different.” He glanced out the window. “Maybe. Father thinks I did something terrible. But … I was right, Veil. I’m not going to let someone hide behind social propriety while threatening my family. I won’t let them use my honor against me. And … Stonefalls. I say things like that, and…”

“And it doesn’t sound so different from killing Ialai,” Veil said. “Regardless, I didn’t kill her.”

Shallan, having had a short breather, started to reemerge. Veil retreated, letting Shallan lean up against Adolin. He, though tense at first, let her do so.

She rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. His life. Pulsing within him like the thunder of a captive storm. Pattern seemed to sense the way that pulse calmed her, for he began humming from where he hung on the roof.

She would tell Adolin everything, eventually. She’d told him some already. About her father, and her mother, and her life in Jah Keved. But not the deepest things, the things she didn’t even remember herself. How could she tell him things that were clouded in her own memory?

She also hadn’t told him about the Ghostbloods. She wasn’t certain she could share that secret, but could … could she try? Begin, at least? At Veil and Radiant’s prompting, she searched for a way. After all, Dalinar kept saying that the next step was the most important one.

“There’s something you need to know,” she said. “Before you came in, Ialai implied that if I took her captive, she would be killed. She knew the blow was coming—that’s why I was suspicious of her death. She also said she didn’t kill Thanadal. That it was another group called the Ghostbloods. She thought the Ghostbloods would send someone for her—which was why she was certain she’d die.”

“We’ve been hunting them. Ialai was leading them.”

“No, dear, she was leading the Sons of Honor. The Ghostbloods are a different group.”

He scratched his head. “Are they the ones your … brother Helaran belonged to? The one that attacked Amaram, right? And Kaladin killed Helaran without knowing who he was?”

“Those were the Skybreakers. They’re not so secret any longer. They joined with the enemy—”

“Right. Radiants on the other team.” Those likely made sense to him, as he’d taken battlefield reports on them. The shadowy groups moving at night, on the other hand, were something he couldn’t fight directly. Dealing with them was to be her job.

She dug in her pocket as the carriage rolled over a particularly robust series of bumps. This path hadn’t been graded or leveled, and though the carriage driver did his best to miss the larger rockbuds, there was only so much he could do.

“The Ghostbloods,” Shallan said, “are the people who tried to kill Jasnah—and me by extension—by sinking our ship.”

“So they’re on Odium’s side,” Adolin said.

“It’s more complicated than that. Honestly, I’m not sure what they want, besides secrets. They were trying to get to Urithiru before Jasnah, but we beat them to it.” Led them to it might have been more accurate. “I’m not at all sure what they want those secrets for.”

“Power,” Adolin said.

That response—the same one she’d given to Ialai—now seemed so simplistic. Mraize, and his inscrutable master Iyatil, were deliberate, precise people. Perhaps they were merely seeking to glean leverage or wealth from the chaos of the end of the world. Shallan realized she would be disappointed to discover that their plans were so pedestrian. Any corpse robber on a battlefield could exploit the misfortune of others.

Mraize was a hunter. He didn’t wait for opportunities. He went out and made them.

“What’s that?” Adolin asked, nodding to the book in her hand.

“Before she died,” Shallan said. “Ialai gave me a hint that led me to search the room and find this.”

“That’s why you didn’t want the guards to do it,” he said. “Because one of them might be a spy or assassin. Storms.”

“You might want to reassign your soldiers to boring, out-of-the-way posts for a season.”

“These are some of my best men!” Adolin complained. “Highly decorated! They just pulled off an extremely dangerous covert operation.”

“So give them a rest at some quiet post,” Shallan said. “Until we figure this out. I’ll watch my agents. If I discover it’s one of them, you can bring the men back.”

He sulked at the suggestion; he hated the idea of punishing a group of good men because one of them might be a spy. Adolin might claim he