her knees, then tried to climb to her feet, but her legs were unsteady and the room lurched around her, as if she were still on the ship.
“Pattern?” she croaked. “Pattern?”
She heard something outside. Shouts?
“I’m sorry,” Tyn said, voice cold. “I’m going to have to tie this up tight. In a way, I’m proud of you. You fooled me. You’d have been good at this.”
Calm, Shallan told herself. Be calm!
Ten heartbeats.
But for her, it didn’t have to be ten, did it?
No. It must be. Time, I need time!
She had spheres in her sleeve. As Tyn approached, Shallan breathed in sharply. Stormlight became a raging tempest inside of her and she raised her hand, thrusting out a pulse of Light. She couldn’t form it into anything—she still didn’t know how—but it seemed for a moment to show a rippling image of Shallan, standing proudly like a woman of the court.
Tyn stopped short at the sight of the projection of light and color, then waved her sword out in front of her. The Light rippled, dissipating into smoky trails.
“So I’m going mad,” Tyn said. “Hearing voices. Seeing things. I guess part of me doesn’t want to do this.” She advanced, raising her blade. “I’m sorry that you have to learn the lesson this way. Sometimes, we must do things we don’t like, kid. Difficult things.”
Shallan growled, thrusting her hands forward. Mist twisted and writhed in her hands as a brilliantly silver Blade formed there, spearing Tyn through the chest. The woman barely had time to gasp in surprise as her eyes burned in her skull.
Tyn’s corpse slid back off the weapon, collapsing in a heap.
“Difficult things,” Shallan growled. “Yes. I believe I told you. I’ve learned that lesson already. Thank you.” She crawled to her feet, wobbling.
The tent flap ripped open and Shallan turned, holding up the Shardblade point-first toward the opening. Vathah, Gaz, and a few other soldiers stopped there in a jumble, weapons bloodied. They looked from Shallan to the corpse on the floor with its burned-out eyes, then back to Shallan.
She felt numb. She wanted to dismiss the Blade, hide it. It was terrible.
She did not. She crushed those emotions and hid them deep within. At the moment, she needed something strong to hold to, and the weapon served that purpose. Even if she hated it.
“Tyn’s soldiers?” Was that her voice, completely cold, purged of emotion?
“Stormfather!” Vathah said, stepping into the tent, hand to his chest as he stared at the Shardblade. “That night, when you pled with us, you could have killed us every one, and the bandits too. You could have done it on your own—”
“Tyn’s men!” Shallan shouted.
“Dead, Brightness,” Red said. “We heard . . . heard a voice. Telling us to come get you, and they wouldn’t let us pass. Then we heard you screaming, and—”
“Was it the voice of the Almighty?” Vathah asked in a whisper.
“It was my spren,” Shallan said. “That is all you need know. Search this tent. This woman was hired to assassinate me.” It was true, after a fashion. “There might be records of who hired her. Bring me anything you find with writing on it.”
As they swarmed in and set to work, Shallan sat down on the stool beside the table. The spanreed still waited there, hovering, paused at the bottom of the page. It needed a new sheet.
Shallan dismissed the Shardblade. “Do not speak of what you saw here to the others,” she told Vathah and his men. Though they promised quickly, she doubted that would hold for long. Shardblades were near-mythical objects, and a woman holding one? Rumors would spread. Just what she needed.
You’re alive because of that cursed thing, she thought to herself. Again. Stop complaining.
She took the spanreed up and changed the paper, then set it with its point at the corner. After a moment, Tyn’s distant accomplice started writing again.
Your benefactors on the Amydlatn job wish to meet with you, the pen wrote. It seems that the Ghostbloods have something else for you to do. Would you like me to arrange a meeting with them in the warcamps?
The pen stopped in place, waiting for a response. What had the spanreed said above? That these people—Tyn’s benefactors, the Ghostbloods—had found the information they sought . . . information about a city.
Urithiru. The people who had killed Jasnah, the people who threatened her family, were searching for the city too. Shallan stared at the paper and its words for an extended moment as Vathah and his