“Mmmmmm…”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“I am thinking,” Pattern said. “Considering the lie.”

“The joke?”

“Yes.”

“Please don’t think too hard,” Shallan said. “It wasn’t a particularly good joke. If you want to ponder a real one, consider that stopping the return of the Voidbringers might depend on me, of all people.”

“Mmmmm…”

She finished with her feet as best she could, then wrapped them with several other cloths from the trunk. She had no slippers or shoes. Perhaps she could buy an extra pair of boots from one of the slavers? The mere thought made her stomach churn, but she didn’t have a choice.

Next, she sorted through the contents of the trunk. This was only one of Jasnah’s trunks, but Shallan recognized it as the one the woman kept in her own cabin—the one the assassins had taken. It contained Jasnah’s notes: books and books full of them. The trunk contained few primary sources, but that didn’t matter, as Jasnah had meticulously transcribed all relevant passages.

As Shallan set aside the last book, she noticed something on the bottom of the trunk. A loose piece of paper? She picked it up, curious—then nearly dropped it in surprise.

It was a picture of Jasnah, drawn by Shallan herself. Shallan had given it to the woman after being accepted as her ward. She’d assumed Jasnah had thrown it away—the woman had little fondness for visual arts, which she considered a frivolity.

Instead, she’d kept it here with her most precious things. No. Shallan didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to face it.

“Mmm…” Pattern said. “You cannot keep all lies. Only the most important.”

Shallan reached up and found tears in her eyes. For Jasnah. She’d been avoiding the grief, had stuffed it into a little box and set it away.

As soon as she let that grief come, another piled on top of it. A grief that seemed frivolous in comparison to Jasnah’s death, but one that threatened to tow Shallan down as much, or even more.

“My sketchpads…” she whispered. “All gone.”

“Yes,” Pattern said, sounding sorrowful.

“Every drawing I’ve ever kept. My brothers, my father, Mother…” All sunk into the depths, along with her sketches of creatures and her musings on their connections, biology, and nature. Gone. Every bit of it gone.

The world didn’t depend upon Shallan’s silly pictures of skyeels. She felt as if everything was broken anyway.

“You will draw more,” Pattern whispered.

“I don’t want to.” Shallan blinked free more tears.

“I will not stop vibrating. The wind will not stop blowing. You will not stop drawing.”

Shallan brushed her fingers across the picture of Jasnah. The woman’s eyes were alight, almost alive again—it was the first picture Shallan had drawn of Jasnah, done on the day they’d met. “The broken Soulcaster was with my things. It’s now on the bottom of the ocean, lost. I won’t be able to repair it and send it to my brothers.”

Pattern buzzed in what sounded like a morose tone to her.

“Who are they?” Shallan asked. “The ones who did this, who killed her and took my art from me. Why would they do such horrible things?”

“I do not know.”

“But you are certain that Jasnah was right?” Shallan said. “The Voidbringers are going to return?”

“Yes. Spren… spren of him. They come.”

“These people,” Shallan said, “they killed Jasnah. They were probably of the same group as Kabsal, and… and as my father. Why would they kill the person closest to understanding how, and why, the Voidbringers are coming back?”

“I…” He faltered.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Shallan said. “I already know the answer, and it is a very human one. These people seek to control the knowledge so that they can profit from it. Profit from the apocalypse itself. We’re going to see that doesn’t happen.”

She lowered the sketch of Jasnah, setting it between the pages of a book to keep it safe.

Scroll of Stances

14. Ironstance

Mateform meek, for love to share,

Given to life, it brings us joy.

To find this form, one must care.

True empathy one must employ.

From the Listener Song of Listing, 5th stanza

“It’s been a while,” Adolin said, kneeling and holding his Shardblade before him, point sunken a few inches into the stone ground. He was alone. Just him and the sword in one of the new preparation rooms, built alongside the dueling arena.

“I remember when I won you,” Adolin whispered, looking at his reflection in the blade. “Nobody took me seriously then, either. The fop with the nice clothing. Tinalar thought to duel me just to embarrass my father. Instead I got his Blade.” If he’d lost, he would have had to give Tinalar his Plate, which he’d inherited from his mother’s side of the family.

Adolin had never named his Shardblade. Some did, some didn’t. He’d never thought it appropriate—not because he didn’t think the Blade deserved a name, but because he figured he didn’t know the right one. This weapon had belonged to one of the Knights Radiant, long ago. That man had named the weapon, undoubtedly. To call it something else seemed presumptuous. Adolin had felt that way even before he’d started thinking of the Radiants in a good light, as his father did.

This Blade would continue after Adolin died. He didn’t own it. He was borrowing it for a time.

Its surface was austerely smooth, long, sinuous like an eel, with ridges at the back like growing crystals. Shaped like a larger version of a standard longsword, it bore some resemblance to the enormous, two-handed broadswords he’d seen Horneaters wield.

“A real duel,” Adolin whispered to the Blade. “For real stakes. Finally. No more tiptoeing around it, no more limiting myself.”

The Shardblade didn’t respond, but Adolin imagined that it listened to him. You couldn’t use a weapon like this, a weapon that seemed like an extension of the soul itself, and not feel at times that it was alive.

“I speak so confidently to everyone else,” Adolin said, “since I know they rely on me. But if I lose today, that’s it. No more duels, and a severe knot in Father’s grand plan.”

He could hear people outside. Stomping feet, a buzz of chatter. Scraping on the stone. They’d come. Come to see Adolin win or be humiliated.

“This might be our last fight together,” Adolin said softly. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me. I know you’d do it for anyone who held you, but I still appreciate it. I… I want you to know: I believe in Father. I believe he’s right, that the things he sees are real. That the world needs a united Alethkar. Fights like this one are my way to make it happen.”

Adolin and his father weren’t politicians. They were soldiers—Dalinar by choice, Adolin more by circumstance. They wouldn’t be able to just talk their way into a unified kingdom. They’d have to fight their way into one.