about eye color, that it’s just easier for you to pretend that every lighteyes is abusing you because of your status. Have you ever asked yourself if there’s a simpler explanation? Could it be that people don’t like you, not because you’re darkeyed, but because you’re just a huge pain in the neck?”
He snorted, then moved on more quickly.
“No,” Shallan said, practically running to keep even with him and his long stride. “You’re not wiggling out of this. You don’t get to imply that I’m abusing my station, then walk off without a response. You did this earlier, with Adolin. Now with me. What is your problem?”
“You want a better example of you playing with people beneath you?” Kaladin asked, dodging her question. “Fine. You stole my boots. You pretended to be someone you weren’t and bullied a darkeyed guard you’d barely met. Is that a good enough example of you playing with someone you saw as beneath you?”
She stopped in her tracks. He was right, there. She wanted to blame Tyn’s influence, but his comment cut the bite out of her argument.
He stopped ahead of her, looking back. Finally, he sighed. “Look,” he said. “I’m not holding a grudge about the boots. From what I’ve seen lately, you’re not as bad as the others. So let’s just leave it at that.”
“Not as bad as the others?” Shallan said, walking forward. “What a delightful compliment. Well, let’s say you’re right. Perhaps I am an insensitive rich woman. That doesn’t change the fact that you can be downright mean and offensive, Kaladin Stormblessed.”
He shrugged.
“That’s it?” she asked. “I apologize, and all I get in return is a shrug?”
“I am what the lighteyes have made me to be.”
“So you’re not culpable at all,” she said flatly. “For the way you act.”
“I’d say not.”
“Stormfather. I can’t say anything to change the way you treat me, can I? You’re just going to continue to be an intolerant, odious man, full of spite. Incapable of being pleasant around others. Your life must be very lonely.”
That seemed to get under his skin, as his face turned red in the spherelight. “I’m starting to revise my opinion,” he said, “of you not being as bad as the others.”
“Don’t lie,” she said. “You’ve never liked me. Right from the start. And not just because of the boots. I see how you watch me.”
“That’s because,” he said, “I know you’re lying through your smile at everyone you meet. The only time you seem honest is when you’re insulting someone!”
“The only honest things I can say to you are insults.”
“Bah!” he said. “I just . . . Bah! Why is it that being around you makes me want to claw my face off, woman?”
“I have special training,” she said, glancing to the side. “And I collect faces.” What was that?
“You can’t just—”
He cut off as the scraping noise, echoing from one of the chasms, grew louder.
Kaladin immediately put his hand over his improvised sphere lantern, plunging them into darkness. In Shallan’s estimation, that did not help. She stumbled toward him in the darkness, grabbing his arm with her freehand. He was annoying, but he was also there.
The scraping continued. A sound like rock on rock. Or . . . carapace on rock.
“I guess,” she whispered nervously, “having a shouting match in an echoing network of chasms was not terribly wise.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s getting closer, isn’t it?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
“So . . . run?”
The scraping seemed just beyond the next turn.
“Yeah,” Kaladin said, pulling his hand off his spheres and charging away from the noise.
Whether this was Tanavast’s design or not, millennia have passed without Rayse taking the life of another of the sixteen. While I mourn for the great suffering Rayse has caused, I do not believe we could hope for a better outcome than this.
Kaladin scrambled down the chasm, leaping branches and refuse, splashing through puddles. The girl kept up better than he’d expected, but—hampered by her dress—she was nowhere near as swift as he was.
He held himself back, matching her pace. Exasperating though she might be, he wasn’t going to abandon Adolin’s betrothed to be eaten by a chasmfiend.
They reached an intersection and chose a path at random. At the next intersection, he only paused long enough to check to see if they were being followed.
They were. Thumping from behind them, claws on stone. Scraping. He grabbed the girl’s satchel—he was already carrying her pack—as they ran down another corridor. Either Shallan was in excellent shape, or the panic got to