AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The distance was too great for him to distinguish one scratched-out face from another. However, he did notice when one vanished into mist. Those spren were Shardblades—hundreds of them, more than he’d known existed. When their owners summoned them, their bodies evaporated from Shadesmar. Why were they here? Deadeyes usually tried to keep close to their owners, wandering through the ocean of beads.
“There is a Connection happening,” Vaiu said. “Deadeyes cannot think, but they are still spren—bound to the spiritweb of Roshar herself. They can feel what is happening in this keep, that justice will finally be administered.”
“If you can call it justice,” Adolin said, “to punish a man for what his ancestors did.”
“You are the one who suggested this course, human,” Vaiu said. “You took their sins upon you. This trial cannot possibly make remediation for the thousands murdered, but the deadeyes sense what is happening here.”
Adolin glanced at his other guard, Alvettaren. She wore a breastplate and a steel cap—both formed from her substance, of course—above close-cropped hair. As usual she stared forward, her lips closed. She rarely had anything to add.
“It is time for today’s legal training,” Vaiu said. “You have very little time until the High Judge returns and your trial begins. You had best spend it studying instead of staring at the deadeyes. Let’s go.”
* * *
Veil was really starting to hate this fortress. Lasting Integrity was built like a storming monolith, a stupid brick of a building with no windows. It was impossible to feel anything other than trapped while inside these walls.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was how honorspren had no respect whatsoever for the laws of nature. Veil opened the door from the small building she shared with Adolin, looking out at what seemed to be an ordinary street. A walkway of worked stone led from her front door and passed by several other small buildings before dead-ending at a wall.
However, as soon as she stepped out, her brain started to panic. Another flat surface of stone hung in the air above her, instead of the sky. It was clustered with its own buildings—and people, mostly honorspren, walked along its pathways. To her left and right were two other surfaces, much the same.
The actual sky was behind her. She was walking on the inside surface of one of the walls of the fortress. It squeezed her mind, making her tremble. Shallan, Veil thought, you should be leading. You’d like the way this place looks.
Shallan did not respond. She huddled deep within, refusing to emerge. Ever since they’d discovered that Pattern had been lying to them, probably for years, she had become increasingly reclusive. Veil was able to coax her out now and then, but lately something … dangerous had come with her. Something they were calling Formless.
Veil wasn’t certain it was a new persona. If it wasn’t, would that be even worse?
Veil let Radiant take over. Radiant wasn’t so bothered by the strange geometry, and she took off down the path without feeling vertigo—though even she had trouble sometimes. The worst parts were the strange halfway zones at the corners where each plane met, where you had to step from one wall to another. The honorspren did it easily, but Radiant’s stomach did somersaults every time she had to.
Shallan, Radiant thought, you should sketch this place. We should carry drawings with us when we leave.
Nothing.
Honorspren liked to keep the hour exactly, so the bells told Radiant she was on time as she turned up the side of the wall toward the sky, passing various groups of spren going about their business. This wall of the fortress—the southern plane—was the most beautified, with gardens of crystalline plants of a hundred different varieties.
Fountains somehow flowed here, the only free water Radiant had seen in Shadesmar. She passed one fountain that surged and fell in powerful spouts; if a spray got beyond about fifteen feet high, the water would suddenly break off the top and stream down toward the actual ground rather than back toward the wall plane. Storms, this place didn’t make any kind of sense.
Radiant turned away from the fountain and tried to focus on the people she was passing. She hadn’t expected to find anyone other than honorspren in here, considering how strict the fortress was, but apparently its xenophobic policy had only been instituted a year ago. Any other people then living inside the fortress were allowed to stay, though they’d be forbidden reentry if they left.
That meant ambassadorial delegations from the other spren nations—as well as some tradespeople and random wanderers—had been grandfathered into the honorspren lockdown. Most importantly, seventeen humans lived here.
Without direction from Shallan, and with the honorspren taking their time preparing their trial, Radiant and Veil had reached a compromise. They’d find Restares, the person Mraize had sent them to locate. They wouldn’t take any actions against him unless they could get Shallan to decide, but Radiant was perfectly willing to locate him. This man, the phantom leader of the Sons of Honor, was a key part of this entire puzzle—and she was intensely curious why Mraize wanted him so badly.
Restares was, according to Mraize, a human male. Radiant carried a description of the man in her pocket, though none of the honorspren Veil had asked knew the name. And unfortunately, the description was rather vague. A shorter human with thinning hair. Mraize said Restares was a secretive type, and would likely be using an alias and perhaps a disguise.
He was supposedly paranoid, which made perfect sense to Radiant. Restares led a group of people who had worked to restore the singers and the Fused. The coming of the Everstorm had led to the fall of multiple kingdoms, the deaths of thousands, and the enslavement of millions. The Sons of Honor were deplorable for seeking these things. True, it wasn’t clear their efforts had in fact influenced the Return, but she could understand why they wanted to hide.
Upon first entering the fortress, she’d asked to be introduced to the other humans residing in the place. In response, the honorspren had given her the full list of all humans living here. With limited locations to search, she’d assumed her task would be easy. Indeed, it had started out that way. She’d started with the largest group of people: a caravan of traders from a kingdom called Nalthis, a place out in the darkness beyond the edges of the map. Veil had chatted with them at length, discovering that Azure—who had moved on from the fortress by now—was from the same land.
Radiant had trouble conceptualizing what it meant for there to be kingdoms out away from the continent. Did Azure’s people live on islands in the ocean?
No, Veil thought. We’re avoiding the truth, Radiant. It means something else. Like Mraize told us. Those people came from another land. Another world.
Radiant’s mind reeled at the thought. She took a deep breath, slowing near a group of trees—real ones from the Physical Realm, kept alive with Stormlight instead of sunlight—that were the centerpieces of this park. The tops were so high that when leaves fell off, they drifted down toward the real ground, through the middle of the fortress.
Shallan, Radiant thought. You could come and talk to people from other worlds. This is too big for Veil and me.
Shallan stirred, but as she did, that darkness moved with her. She quickly retreated.
Let’s focus on today’s mission, Radiant, Veil said.
Radiant agreed, and forced Veil to emerge. She could handle the strange geography; she had to. She put her head down and continued. None of the travelers from Nalthis looked like Restares, or seemed likely to be him in disguise. The next handful on her list had been Horneaters; apparently there was a clan of them who lived in Shadesmar. She’d doubted any were Restares, but she’d interviewed each of them just in case.
