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They passed groups of honorspren, and he thought about what Blended had said regarding their natures. Not simply of honor—of honor as defined by the spren themselves. Well, maybe they weren’t all as stuffy as they seemed. He’d catch laughter or a hint of a mischievous grin. Then an older uniformed honorspren would walk past—and everyone would grow solemn again. These creatures seemed trapped between an instinct for playfulness and their natures as the spren of oaths.
He anticipated another tedious discussion with the honorspren who managed his case—but before Adolin and Blended entered the building of justice, she stopped and cocked her head. She waved for him to follow in another direction, and he soon saw why. A disturbance was occurring on the ground plane, near the gates into the city. A moment of panic made him wonder if his friends had decided to rescue him against his wishes—followed by a deeper worry that all those deadeyes outside had snapped and decided to rush the fortress.
It was neither. A group of spren crowded around a newly arrived figure. “The High Judge?” Adolin guessed.
“Yes,” Blended said. “Excellent. You can make your petition to him.” She walked that direction, down along the face of the western plane.
Adolin followed until he saw the details of the figure everyone was making such a fuss over.
The High Judge, it appeared, was human.
* * *
“Human?” Veil said, stopping in place. “That’s impossible.”
She squinted at the figure below, and didn’t need to get close to see what her gut was already telling her. A short Alethi man with thinning hair. That was him, the one she’d been hunting. The High Judge was Restares.
“Mmm…” Pattern said. “They did say the High Judge was a spren. Perhaps the honorspren lied? Mmm…”
Veil stepped up to a small crowd of honorspren who had gathered on the southern plane to gawk at the newcomer. One was Lusintia, the honorspren assigned to show Veil around on her first day in the fortress. She was a shorter spren, with hair kept about level with the point of her chin. She didn’t wear a uniform, but the stiff jacket and trousers she preferred might as well have been one.
Veil elbowed her way over to Lusintia, earning shocked glances from the honorspren, who generally didn’t crowd in such a way. Pattern followed in her wake.
“That can’t be the High Judge,” Veil said, pointing. “I specifically asked if the High Judge was human.”
“He’s not,” Lusintia said.
“But—”
“He might have the form of a man,” Lusintia said. “But he is an eternal and immortal spren who blesses us with his presence. That is Kalak, called Kelek’Elin among your people. Herald of the Almighty. He commanded us not to tell people he was here—and ordered us specifically to not speak of him to humans, so we were not allowed to answer your questions until you saw him for yourself.”
One of the Heralds. Damnation.
The man Mraize had sent her to find—and, she suspected, the man he wanted her to kill—was one of the Heralds.
Jezrien is gone. Despite being all the way out here in Lasting Integrity, I felt him being ripped away. The Oathpact was broken already, but the Connection remained. Each of us can sense the others, to an extent. And with further investigation, I know the truth of what happened to him. It felt like death at first, and I think that is what it ultimately became.
Rlain stepped into the laundry room, and felt every single storming head in the place turn to look at him. The singer guards at the door perked up, one nudging the other and humming to Curiosity. Human women working the large tubs of sudsy water turned as they scrubbed. Men who were toiling at bleaching vats—with long poles to move the cloth inside—stopped and wiped brows. Chatter became whispers.
Rlain. Traitor. Reject. Oddity.
He kept his head high—he hadn’t lived through Bridge Four to be intimidated by a quiet room and staring eyes—but he couldn’t help feeling like he was the one gemstone in the pile that didn’t glow. Somehow, with the singers invading Urithiru, he’d become more of an outsider.
He strode past the vats and tubs to the drying station. Some of the tower’s original fabrials—the lifts, the main wells, the air vents—had been altered to work with Voidlight. That meant the workers here could set out large racks for drying in this room where the vents blew a little stronger. There was talk that the Fused would get other fabrials in the tower working soon, but Rlain wasn’t privy to their timelines.
Near the drying racks he found a small cart waiting for him, filled with clean bedding. He counted the sheets as the foreman—a lighteyed human who always seemed to be standing around when Rlain visited—leaned against the wall nearby, folding his arms.
“So,” he said to Rlain, “what’s it like? Roaming the tower. Ruling the place. Pretty good, eh?”
“I don’t rule anything,” Rlain said.
“Sure, sure. Must feel good though, being in charge of all those people who used to own you.”
“I’m a listener,” Rlain said to Irritation. “I was never an Alethi slave, just a spy pretending to be one.” Well, except for Bridge Four. That had felt like true slavery.
“But your people are in charge now,” the man prodded, completely unable to take a hint.
“They aren’t my people,” Rlain said. “I’m a listener—I come from an entirely different country. I’m as much one of them as you are an Iriali.”
The man scratched his head at that. Rlain sighed and wheeled the cart over to pick up some pillows. The women there didn’t usually talk to him, so he was able to pile up the pillows without getting more than a few scowls.
He could hear their whispers, unfortunately. Better than they probably thought he could.
“… Don’t speak too loudly,” one was saying. “He’ll report you to them.”
“He was here all along,” another hissed. “Watching the Windrunners, planning when best to strike. He’s the one who poisoned them.”
“Hovers over them like a vengeful spren,” a third said. “Watching to kill any who wake up. Any who—”
She squealed as Rlain spun toward the three women. Their eyes opened wide and they drew back. Rlain could feel their tension as he walked up to them.
“I like cards,” he said.
The three stared at him in horror.
“Cards,” Rlain said to Longing. “I’m best at towers, but I like runaround too. I’m pretty good, you know. Bisig says it’s because I’m good at bluffing. I find it fun. I like it.”
The three women exchanged looks, obviously confused.
“I thought you should know something about me,” Rlain said. “I figured maybe if you did, you would stop making things up.” He nodded to them, then forcibly attuned Peace as he went back to tie the pillows into place on the top of his cart. As he began wheeling it away, the whispers started again.
“You heard him,” the first woman hissed. “He’s a gambler! Of course. Those kind can see the future, you know. Foul powers of the Void. He likes to take advantage of those unwise enough to bet against him.…”
Rlain sighed, but kept going. At the door, he knew to step to the side as one of the singer guards tried to trip him. They hadn’t tired of that same old terrible trick—no matter how many times he visited. He shoved his way out the door quickly, but not before one of them called, “See you tomorrow, traitor!” to the Rhythm of Reprimand.
