Words of Radiance

“I would lighten that phrasing, Brightlord,” Shallan said, choosing her words carefully. “We aren’t supposed to get married. Your cousin Jasnah merely wanted us to consider a union, and your aunt seemed to agree.”

“The Almighty save a man when his female relatives collude about his future,” Adolin said with a sigh. “Sure, it’s all right for Jasnah to run about into her middle years without a spouse, but if I reach my twenty-third birthday without a bride, it’s like I’m some kind of menace. Sexist of her, don’t you think?”

“Well, she wanted me to get married too,” Shallan said. “So I wouldn’t call her sexist. Merely . . . Jasnah-ist?” She paused. “Jasnagynistic? No, drat. It would have to be Misjasnahistic, and that doesn’t work nearly as well, does it?”

“You’re asking me?” Adolin asked, turning around the menu so she could see it. “What do you think we should order?”

“Storms,” she breathed. “Those are all different kinds of wine?”

“Yeah,” Adolin said. He leaned toward her, as if conspiratorial. “Honestly, I don’t pay a lot of attention. Renarin knows the difference between them—he’ll drone on if you let him. Me, I order something that sounds important, but I’m really just choosing based on color.” He grimaced. “We’re technically at war. I won’t be able to take anything too intoxicating, just in case. Kind of silly, as there won’t be any plateau runs today.”

“You’re sure? I thought they were random.”

“Yeah, but my warcamp isn’t up. They almost never come too close before a highstorm, anyway.” He leaned back, scanning the menu, before pointing at one of the wines and winking at the serving woman.

Shallan felt cold. “Wait. Highstorm?”

“Yeah,” Adolin said, checking the clock in the corner. Sebarial had mentioned that those were growing more and more common around here. “Should come any time now. You didn’t know?”

She sputtered, looking eastward, across the cracked landscape. Act poised! she thought. Elegant! Instead, a primal part of her wanted to scramble for a hole and hide. Suddenly she imagined she could sense the pressure dropping, as if the air itself were trying to escape. Could she see it out there, starting? No, that was nothing. She squinted anyway.

“I didn’t look at the list of storms Sebarial keeps,” Shallan forced herself to say. In all honesty, it was probably outdated, knowing him. “I’ve been busy.”

“Huh,” Adolin said. “I wondered why you didn’t ask about this place. I just assumed you’d heard of it already.”

This place. The open balcony, facing east. The lighteyes drinking wine now seemed anticipatory to her, with an air of nervousness. The second room—the large one for bodyguards she’d seen with the substantial doors—made far more sense now.

“We’re here to watch?” Shallan whispered.

“It’s the new fad,” Adolin said. “Apparently we’re supposed to sit here until the storm is almost upon us, then run into that other room and take shelter. I’ve wanted to come for weeks now, and only just managed to convince my minders that I’d be safe here.” He said that last part somewhat bitterly. “We can go move into the safe room now, if you want.”

“No,” Shallan said, forcing herself to pry her fingers from the table edge. “I’m fine.”

“You look pale.”

“It’s natural.”

“Because you’re Veden?”

“Because I’m always at the edge of panic these days. Oh, is that our wine?”

Poised, she reminded herself yet again. She pointedly did not look eastward.

The servant had brought them two cups of brilliant blue wine. Adolin picked his up and studied it. He smelled it, sipped it, then nodded in satisfaction and dismissed the servant with a parting smile. He watched the woman’s backside as she retreated.

Shallan raised an eyebrow at him, but he didn’t seem to notice that he’d done anything wrong. He looked back at Shallan and leaned in again. “I know you’re supposed to swish the wine about and taste it and things,” he whispered, “but nobody has ever explained to me what I’m looking for.”

“Bugs floating in the liquid, perhaps?”

“Nah, my new food taster would have spotted one of those.” He smiled, but Shallan realized he probably wasn’t joking. A thin man who didn’t wear a uniform had walked over to chat with the bodyguards. Probably the food taster.

Shallan sipped her wine. It was good—slightly sweet, a tad spicy. Not that she could spare much thought for its taste, with that storm—

Stop it, she told herself, smiling at Adolin. She needed to make sure this meeting went well for him. Get him to talk about himself. That was one piece of advice she remembered from books.

“Plateau runs,” Shallan said. “How do you know when to begin one, anyway?”

“Hmm? Oh, we have spotters,” Adolin said, lounging back in his chair. “Men who stand atop towers with these enormous spyglasses. They inspect every plateau we can reach in a reasonable time, watching for a chrysalis.”

“I hear you’ve captured your share of those.”

“Well, I probably shouldn’t talk about it. Father doesn’t want it to be a competition anymore.” He looked at her, expectant.

“But surely you can talk about what happened before,” Shallan said, feeling as if she were filling an expected role.

“I suppose,” Adolin said. “There was one run a few months back where I seized the chrysalis basically by myself. You see, Father and I, we would usually jump the chasm first and clear the way for the bridges.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Shallan asked, dutifully looking at him with widened eyes.

“Yes, but we’re Shardbearers. We have strength and power granted by the Almighty. It’s a great responsibility, and it’s our duty to use it for the protection of our men. We save hundreds of lives by going across first. Lets us lead the army, firsthand.”

He paused.

“So brave,” Shallan said, in what she hoped was a breathy, adoring voice.

“Well, it’s the right thing to do. But it is dangerous. That day, I leaped across, but my father and I got pushed too far apart by the Parshendi. He was forced to jump back across, and a blow to his leg meant that when he landed, his greave—that’s a piece of armor on the leg—cracked. That made it dangerous for him to jump back again. I was left alone while he waited for the bridge to lock down.”

He paused again. She was probably supposed to ask what happened next.

“What if you need to poop?” she asked instead.

“Well, I put my back to the chasm and laid about me with my sword, intending to . . . Wait. What did you say?”

“Poop,” Shallan said. “You’re out there on the battlefield, encased in metal like a crab in its shell. What do you do if nature calls?”

“I . . . er . . .” Adolin frowned at her. “That is not something any woman has ever asked me before.”

“Yay for originality!” Shallan said, though she blushed as she said it. Jasnah would have been displeased. Couldn’t Shallan mind her tongue for a single conversation? She’d gotten him talking about something he liked; everything had been going well. Now this.

“Well,” Adolin said slowly, “every battle has breaks in the flow, and men rotate in and out of the front lines. For every five minutes you’re fighting, you often have almost as many resting. When a Shardbearer pulls back, men inspect his armor for cracks, give him something to drink or eat, and help him with . . . what you just mentioned. It’s not something that makes a good topic of conversation, Brightness. We don’t really talk about it.”

“That’s precisely what makes it a good topic of conversation,” she said. “I can find out about wars and Shardbearers and glorious killing in the official accounts. The grimy details, though—nobody writes those down.”

“Well, it does get grimy,” Adolin said with a grimace, taking a drink. “You can’t really . . . I can’t believe I’m saying this . . . you can’t really wipe yourself in Shardplate, so someone has to do it for you. Makes me feel like an infant. Then, sometimes, you just don’t have time . . .”

“And?”

He inspected her, narrowing his eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“Just trying to determine if you’re secretly Wit wearing a wig. This is something he would do to me.”

“I’m not doing anything to you,” she said. “I’m just curious.” And honestly, she was. She’d thought about this. Perhaps more than it deserved consideration.

“Well,” Adolin said, “if you must know, an old adage on the battlefield teaches that it’s better to be embarrassed than dead. You can’t let anything draw your attention from fighting.”

“So . . .”

“So yes, I, Adolin Kholin—cousin to the king, heir to the Kholin princedom—have shat myself in my Shardplate. Three times, all on purpose.” He downed the rest of his wine. “You are a very strange woman.”