Words of Radiance

Well, she was bound to make some mistakes. At least this one wasn’t life threatening. Probably.

“Jin,” Mraize snapped.

A golden-haired man with a bare chest beneath a flowing outer robe stood up from one of the chairs.

“Look at him,” Mraize said to Shallan.

She took a Memory.

“Jin, leave us. You will draw him, Veil.”

She had no choice but to oblige. As Jin walked off, grumbling to himself at the rain, Shallan started sketching. She did a full sketch—not just his face and shoulders, but an environment study, including the background of fallen boulders. Nervous, she didn’t do as good a job as she could have, but Mraize still cooed over her picture like a proud father. She finished and got out her lacquer—this was in charcoal, and would want it—but Mraize plucked it from her fingers first.

“Incredible,” he said, holding the sheet up. “You are wasted with Tyn. You can’t do this with text, however?”

“No,” Shallan lied.

“Pity. Still, this is marvelous. Marvelous. There should be ways to use this, yes indeed.” He looked to her. “What is your goal, child? I might have a place for you in my organization, if you prove reliable.”

Yes! “I wouldn’t have agreed to come in Tyn’s place if I hadn’t wanted that opportunity.”

Mraize narrowed his eyes at Shallan. “You killed her, didn’t you?”

Oh, blast. Shallan blushed immediately, of course. “Uh . . .”

“Ha!” Mraize exclaimed. “She finally picked an assistant who was too capable. Delightful. After all of her arrogant posturing, she was brought down by someone she thought to make into a sycophant.”

“Sir,” Shallan said. “I didn’t . . . I mean, I didn’t want to. She turned on me.”

“That must be quite the story,” Mraize said, smiling. It was not a pleasant smile. “Know that what you have done is not forbidden, but it is hardly encouraged. We cannot run an organization properly if subordinates consider hunting their superiors to be a primary method of advancement.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your superior, however, was not a member of our organization. Tyn thought herself to be the hunter, but she was game all along. If you are to join us, you should understand. We are not like others you may have known. We have a greater purpose, and we are . . . protective of one another.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So who are you?” he asked, waving for his servant to bring back the blowgun. “Who are you really, Veil?”

“Someone who wants to be part of things,” Shallan said. “Things more important than stealing from the odd lighteyes or scamming for a weekend of luxury.”

“So it is a hunt, then,” Mraize said softly, grinning. He turned away from her, walking back to the edge of the pavilion. “More instructions will follow. Do the task assigned to you. Then we shall see.”

It is a hunt, then. . . .

What kind of hunt? Shallan felt chilled by that statement.

Once again, her dismissal was uncertain, but she did up her satchel and started to leave. As she did so, she glanced at the remaining seated people. Their expressions were cold. Frighteningly so.

Shallan left the pavilion and found that the rain had stopped. She walked away, feeling eyes on her back. They all know that I can identify them with exactness, she realized, and can present accurate pictures of them for any who request.

They would not like that. Mraize had made it clear that Ghostbloods didn’t often kill one another. But he’d also made it clear that she wasn’t one of them, not yet. He’d said it pointedly, as if granting permission to those listening in.

Talat’s hand, what had she gotten herself into?

You’re only considering that now? she thought as she rounded the hillside. Her carriage was ahead, the coachman lounging on top, his back to her. Shallan looked anxiously over her shoulder. Nobody had followed yet, at least not that she could see.

“Is anyone watching, Pattern?” she asked.

“Mmm. Me. No people.”

A rock. She’d drawn a boulder in the picture for Mraize. Not thinking—working by instinct and no small amount of panic—she breathed out Stormlight and shaped an image of that boulder before her.

Then, she promptly hid inside of it.

It was dark in there. She curled up in the boulder, sitting with her legs pulled against her. It felt undignified. The other people Mraize worked with probably didn’t do silly things like this. They were practiced, smooth, capable. Storms, she probably didn’t need to be hiding in the first place.

She sat there anyway. The looks in the eyes of the others . . . the way that Mraize had spoken . . .

Better to be overly cautious than naive. She was tired of people assuming she couldn’t care for herself.

“Pattern,” she whispered. “Go to the carriage driver. Tell him this, in my exact voice. ‘I have entered the carriage when you weren’t looking. Do not look. My exit must be stealthy. Carry me back to the city. Pull up to the warcamps and wait to a count of ten. I will leave. Do not look. You have your payment, and discretion was part of it.’”

Pattern hummed and moved off. A short time later, the carriage rattled away, pulled by its parshmen. It didn’t take long for hoofbeats to follow. She hadn’t seen horses.

Shallan waited, anxious. Would any of the Ghostbloods realize this boulder wasn’t supposed to be here? Would they come back, looking for her once they didn’t see her leave the carriage at the warcamps?

Perhaps they hadn’t even gone after her. Perhaps she was being paranoid. She waited, pained. It started raining again. What would that do to her illusion? The stone she’d drawn had already been wet, so dryness wouldn’t give it away—but from the way the rain fell on her, it obviously was passing through the image.

I need to find a way to see the outside while I’m hiding like this, she thought. Eyeholes? Could she make those inside her illusion? Perhaps she—

Voices.

“We will need to find how much he knows.” Mraize’s voice. “You will bring these pages to Master Thaidakar. We are close, but so—it appears—are Restares’s cronies.”

The response came in a rasping voice. Shallan couldn’t make it out.

“No, I’m not worried about that one. The old fool sows chaos, but does not reach for the power offered by opportunity. He hides in his insignificant city, listening to its songs, thinking he plays in world events. He has no idea. His is not the position of the hunter. This creature in Tukar, however, is different. I’m not convinced he is human. If he is, he’s certainly not of the local species. . . .”

Mraize continued speaking, but Shallan heard no more as they moved off. A short time later, she heard more hoofbeats.

She waited, water soaking though her coat and trousers. She shivered, satchel in her lap, and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. Weather lately had been warmer, but sitting in the rain belied that. She waited until her spine complained and her muscles screamed at her. She waited until finally, the boulder broke into luminescent smoke and faded away.

Shallan started. What had happened?

Stormlight, she realized, stretching her legs. She checked the pouch in her pocket. She’d drained every sphere, unconsciously, while holding up the illusion of the boulder.

Hours had passed, the sky darkening as evening approached. Maintaining something simple like the boulder didn’t take much Light, and she didn’t have to consciously think about it to keep it going. That was good to know.

She’d also proven herself a fool again for not even worrying about how much Light she had been using. Sighing, she climbed to her feet. She wobbled, her legs protesting the sudden motion. She took a deep breath, then walked over and peeked around the corner. The pavilion was gone and all signs of the Ghostbloods with it.

“I guess this means I’m walking,” Shallan said, turning back toward the warcamps.

“Did you expect otherwise?” Pattern asked from his place on her coat, sounding genuinely curious.

“No,” Shallan said. “I’m just talking to myself.”

“Mmm. No, you talk to me.”

She walked on into the evening, cold. However, it wasn’t the deadly coldness she’d suffered in the south. This was uncomfortable, but nothing more. If she hadn’t been wet, the air probably would have been pleasant, despite the shade. She passed the time practicing her accents with Pattern—she’d speak, then have him repeat back to her exactly what she’d said, in her voice and tone. Being able to hear it that way helped a great deal.

She had the Alethi accent down, she was certain. That was good, since Veil pretended to be Alethi. That one was easy, however, as Veden and Alethi were so similar you could almost understand one by knowing the other.

Her Horneater accent was quite good too, in both Alethi and Veden. She was getting better and not overdoing it, as Tyn had suggested. Her Bav accent in both Veden and Alethi was passable, and through most of the time walking back, she practiced speaking both tongues with a Herdazian accent. Palona gave her a good example of this in Alethi, and Pattern could repeat to her things the woman had said, which was helpful for practice.

“What I need to do,” Shallan said, “is train you to speak along with my images.”