Words of Radiance

“Bold,” the man said. He gestured with two fingers, and one of the people sitting beside the hearth—a spindly lighteyed man with teeth so large, he might have had some rat in his heritage somewhere—scrambled forward and plunked something down on the long table near Shallan.

A sack of spheres. Inside it must be broams; the sack, though dark brown, glowed brightly.

“Tell me where she is, and you may have that money,” said the scarred man, loading another dart. “You have ambition. I like that. I will not only pay you for her location, but will attempt to find you a position in my organization.”

“Pardon, Brightlord,” Shallan said. “But you know I won’t sell her out to you.” Surely he could see her fear, sweat dampening the lining of her hat, trickling down her temples. Indeed, fearspren wiggled up through the ground beside her, though his view of them might be blocked by the table. “If I were willing to betray Tyn for a price, then of what worth would I ever be to you? You’d know that I’d do the same to you, if offered a big enough bounty.”

“Honor?” the man asked, expression still blank, dart pinched between two fingers. “From a thief?”

“Pardon again, Brightlord,” Shallan said. “But I am no mere thief.”

“And if I were to torture you? I could get the information that way, I assure you.”

“I don’t doubt that you could, Brightlord,” Shallan said. “But do you really think Tyn would send me with knowledge of her location? What would be the point of torturing me?”

“Well,” the man said, looking down and tucking the dart into place, “for one thing, it would be fun.”

Breathe, Shallan told herself. Slowly. Normally. It was hard to manage. “I don’t think you’ll do that, Brightlord.”

He raised the reed and blew with a swift motion. The dart thumped as it stuck into the wall. “And why not?”

“Because you don’t seem the type to throw away something useful.” She nodded toward the relics in glass boxes.

“You presume to be of use to me?”

Shallan raised her head, meeting his gaze. “Yes.”

He held her eyes. The hearth crackled.

“Very well,” he finally said, turning toward his fireplace and picking up his cup again. He continued to hold the reed in one hand, but drank with the other, his back to her.

Shallan felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She exhaled in relief, legs wobbling, and sat down on one of the chairs beside the dining table. Fingers trembling, she got out a handkerchief and wiped her brow and temples, pushing back the hat.

When she stopped to put the handkerchief away, she realized that someone had taken the seat beside her. Shallan hadn’t even seen him move, and his presence gave her a start. The short, tan-skinned person had some kind of carapace mask tied to his face, pulled tight. In fact, it looked like . . . like the skin had started to grow around the edges of the mask somehow.

The arrangement of red-orange carapace pieces was like a mosaic, giving a hint of eyebrows, of anger and rage. Behind that mask, a pair of dark eyes regarded her, unblinking, and an impassive mouth and chin were also left exposed. The man . . . no, the woman—Shallan noticed the hint of breasts and shape of the torso. The exposed safehand had thrown her.

Shallan stifled a blush. The woman wore dark brown clothing, simple, tied at the waist with an intricate belt, studded with more carapace. Four other people wearing more traditional Alethi clothing chatted softly beside the fire. The tall man who had questioned her did not speak again.

“Um, Brightlord?” Shallan said, looking toward him.

“I am considering,” the man said. “I had been expecting to kill you and hunt down Tyn. You can tell her she would have been fine coming to me—I am not angry that she did not retrieve the information from Jasnah. I hired the hunter I felt best for the task, and I understood the risks. Kholin is dead, and Tyn was to achieve that at all other costs. I may not have commended her on the job, but I was satisfied.

“Deciding not to come explain in person, however—that cowardice turns my stomach. She hides, like prey.” He took a sip of his wine. “You are not a coward. She sent someone she knew I would not kill. She always has been clever.”

Great. What did that mean for Shallan? She hesitantly rose from her seat, wanting to be away from the strange little woman with the unblinking eyes. Instead, Shallan took the chance to inspect the room in greater detail. Where was the smoke from the fire going? Had they cut a flue all the way down here?

The right wall had the greater number of trophies, including several enormous gemhearts. Those were, together, likely worth more than her father’s estates. Fortunately, they weren’t infused. Even uncut as they were, they’d probably glow enough to blind. There were also shells that Shallan vaguely recognized. That tusk was probably from a whitespine. And that eye socket, that looked frighteningly close to the structure of a santhid’s skull.

Other curiosities baffled her. A vial of pale sand. A couple of thick hairpins. A lock of golden hair. The branch of a tree with writing on it she couldn’t read. A silver knife. An odd flower preserved in some kind of solution. There were no plaques to explain these mementos. That chunk of pale pink crystal looked like it might be some kind of gemstone, but why was it so delicate? Bits of it had flaked off in its case, as if simply setting it down had almost crushed it.

She stepped, hesitantly, closer to the back of the room. Smoke from the fire rose, then curled and twisted around something hanging at the top of the hearth. A gemstone? . . . No, a fabrial. It gathered the smoke as a spool gathered thread. She’d never seen anything like it.

“Do you know the man named Amaram?” asked the scarred man in white.

“No, Brightlord.”

“I am called Mraize,” the man said. “You may use that title for me. And you are?”

“I’m called Veil,” Shallan said, using a name she’d been toying with.

“Very well. Amaram is a Shardbearer in the court of Highprince Sadeas. He is also my current prey.”

Hearing it spoken like that sent a shiver through Shallan. “And what do you wish of me, Mraize?” She tried, but didn’t get the pronunciation of the title quite right. It wasn’t a Vorin term.

“He owns a manor near Sadeas’s palace,” Mraize said. “Inside, Amaram hides secrets. I would know which ones. Tell your mistress to investigate and return to me with information next week on Chachel. She will know what I seek. If she does this, my disappointment with her will fade.”

Sneaking into the manor of a Shardbearer? Storms! Shallan had no idea how she’d accomplish such a thing. She should leave this place, abandon her disguise, and count herself lucky for having escaped alive.

Mraize set down his empty cup of wine, and she saw that his right hand was scarred, the fingers crooked, as if they had been broken and badly reset. There, glistening and golden on Mraize’s middle finger, was a signet ring bearing the same symbol that Jasnah had drawn. The symbol Shallan’s steward had carried, the symbol that Kabsal had tattooed on his body.

There was no backing out. Shallan would do whatever she had to in order to find out what these people knew. About her family, about Jasnah, and about the end of the world itself.

“The task will be done,” Shallan said to Mraize.

“No question of payment?” Mraize asked, amused, removing a dart from his pocket. “Your mistress always asked.”

“Brightlord,” Shallan said, “one does not haggle at the finest winehouses. Your payment will be accepted.”

For the first time since she’d entered, she saw Mraize smile, though he didn’t look toward her. “Do not harm Amaram, little knife,” he warned. “His life belongs to another. Do not alert anyone or bring suspicion. Tyn is to investigate and return. Nothing more.”

He turned around and blew a dart into the wall. Shallan glanced at the other four people by the fire and took Memories of them with a quick blink each. Then—sensing she had been dismissed—she walked to the ladder.

She felt Mraize’s eyes on her back as he raised his blowgun one last time. The trapdoor opened above. Shallan felt the gaze follow her as she climbed up the ladder.

A dart passed just beneath her, between the rungs, and stabbed the wall. Breathing quickly, Shallan left the hidden chamber, entering the dusty upper basement again. The trapdoor closed, shutting her away into the darkness.

Her poise broke, and she scrambled up the steps and out of the building. She stopped outside, breathing deeply. The street outside had grown more busy, not less, with those taverns drawing a crowd. Shallan hurried on her way.

She realized now that she hadn’t had much of a plan in coming to meet with the Ghostbloods. What was she going to do? Get information from them somehow? That would require earning their trust. Mraize didn’t seem the type to trust anyone. How would she find out what he knew about Urithiru? How to call his people off her brothers? How would she—

“Following,” Pattern said.

Shallan pulled up short. “What?”

“People follow,” Pattern said, voice pleasant, as if he had no idea how tense this entire experience had been for Shallan. “You asked me to watch. I watched.”