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In that way, there was something fresh and interesting about the fashion here. Like the work of a talented but untrained artist. They came up with combinations that no member of Adolin’s culture could ever have dared imagine.
Though, he thought, passing a tall willowy spren of a type he didn’t recognize, someone ought to tell that one what a protective cup is used for on our side.…
His soldiers stopped to browse a weapon shop, though he’d warned them that they shouldn’t rely on manifested weapons. Still, it was difficult not to stare at the sheer variety of swords on display. In the Physical Realm a masterwork sword was an expensive purchase—and it often surprised people how valuable even an everyday side sword could be. Here though, manifesting a sword took roughly the same amount of Stormlight as manifesting a brick, so you could find them in barrels or stacked in piles outside shops.
This bizarre economy would certainly fascinate Shallan. He’d heard they kept near-perfect gemstones in spren banks, storing vast amounts of Stormlight for future use. And of course, having so many humans nearby had attracted small emotion spren, Shadesmar’s equivalent of animals. Gloryspren darted overhead, and fearspren huddled in alleyways looking like large, multi-legged eels with long, globby antennae.
A long flying spren with mustaches and a graceful body landed on the top of a building, then leaped off, ejecting an explosion of tiny crystalline shards that floated down and vanished. Was that a passionspren? He’d have to tell Shallan.
He turned toward the distant barge, where Shallan remained. Maya dutifully stopped beside him, but just stared straight ahead with her scratched-out eyes.
“I wonder why she stayed behind,” Adolin said. “It’s odd for her to want to rest when there’s so much to see.”
Maya didn’t respond. That didn’t prevent him from talking to her. She had a … relaxing air about her.
“Veil probably is in control,” Adolin said. “She’s worried about our things being stolen, I bet. Shallan says the other two exist to protect her or help her, and I see that. I want to understand. I don’t want to be like the others, who whisper about her being crazy and laugh.”
He looked to Maya, who looked back.
“It’s silly of me to be jealous of the time Veil controls her, isn’t it?” Adolin said. “Shallan created Veil as a tool. It’s just … I don’t know if I’m doing this right. I don’t know how to be supportive.”
He wasn’t good with relationships. He never had been. He could admit that to himself now. He’d been in dozens, and they’d all fallen apart—so he had all kinds of experience doing this wrong, but very little doing it right.
He wanted to do it right. He loved Shallan, in part because of her eccentricities. She felt alive in a different way from everyone else—she was also somehow more authentic. She was stuffed full of personas and covered in illusions. Yet incredibly, she felt more real because of them.
Adolin lingered, not wanting to get ahead of the others, and wished he could shove his hands in his pockets. Unfortunately, this uniform’s pockets were sewn shut. The trousers looked better that way.
He knew why he was feeling so off. Seeing another spren settlement reminded him of the last time they’d come to Shadesmar. When he’d been forced to leave Elhokar dead in his palace, the city fallen. Worse, Adolin had accidentally abandoned his troops to face the invasion while he ended up in Shadesmar.
He wasn’t one to stew and brood … but storms, if there was a man who deserved his place in Damnation, it was the general who left his men to die.
Adolin was drawn out of his brooding as he realized Maya was staring to the side, focused on something. That was odd enough, as she didn’t often pay much attention to her surroundings. But when he drew closer, he saw what had transfixed her. It was another deadeye.
This deadeye was a Cryptic who stood beside a storefront. Cryptics didn’t have eyes, but there was no mistaking that the creature had suffered Maya’s fate: the pattern had halted completely, the normally graceful lines twisted and turned in jagged directions, like broken fingers. The same odd scraping marred its center.
Maya released a kind of low whine from deep in her throat.
“I’m sorry,” Adolin said. “I know it’s distressing. Let’s move on quickly.”
She took his arm as he tried to walk off, which shocked him. It seemed to surprise her too, as she looked down at her hands holding his arm, then cocked her head. She held on and turned toward the deadeye Cryptic, pulling him. It was as if she wanted to say something.
His men were still shopping, so Adolin turned in the direction Maya wanted, heading toward the store with the deadeye. Like most he’d seen here in Shadesmar, the shop was open-sided—an awning in front of a small building where the shopkeepers probably lived. There weren’t storms to worry about here, so structures tended to have open-air designs that left Adolin feeling exposed.
The shopkeeper was an inkspren. Adolin had heard that there were fewer of them than there were of other varieties, and they kept to themselves. The creature was jet black, even reflective, like he was made out of stone—but with an oil-on-water shimmer of color when the light hit him right. He sold books, which he kept carefully on shelves, not in stacks and piles like many other shops.
“You are Alethi,” he said, inspecting Adolin. He spoke with a sharp nasal accent. “And you are male. You have no need for books. This is.”
“I wanted to ask after your deadeye,” Adolin said, nodding to the Cryptic.
“A friend she was,” the shopkeeper said, his voice terse.
“Back when there were Radiants.”
“No. A sooner time that was. My partner in business, once.” He frowned. “Do you know something of this, human? The danger that is?”
“What danger?”
“New deadeyes,” the shopkeeper said, shaking his head. “Radiants should not have started again. Do you know that this thing is? In your kingdom it began, did it not?”
“I don’t know of any Radiants betraying their oaths,” Adolin said. “You’re sure about this?”
The inkspren waved to his friend. “She was my partner for many centuries. She left ten years ago to join others hunting for Radiants. Last year I found her like this, sitting alone on an island far to the east. She insisted on coming out this direction—at least, she walked this way incessantly. So I set up shop here.”
“You’re sure,” Adolin said. “That she was afflicted like this recently.”
“My memory is not flawed,” the inkspren said. “This is what you do, killing spren. You should feel ashamed.” He looked at Maya. “Is this another you killed?”
“Of course not,” Adolin said. “I…” He trailed off, not wanting to say too much. He’d instructed everyone to be circumspect.
But … a new deadeye? That seemed impossible. Maybe … maybe some young new Surgebinder out in the backwaters of Bavland could have been left without support or friends, and had broken their oaths. It wasn’t too outlandish; the more they learned, the more they realized that Kaladin, Jasnah, and Shallan hadn’t been unique in forming new Radiant bonds these last few years. A general revolution had been happening all across Roshar, with spren sensing the coming of the Everstorm, and some returning to bond with humans.
