Well, except for that whole part about having to admit to herself that she’d killed her mother. As soon as she thought of it, she instinctively tried to shove the memory away, but it wouldn’t budge. She’d spoken it to Pattern as a truth—which were the odd Ideals of the Lightweavers.
It was stuck in her mind, and every time she thought about it, the gaping wound flared up with pain again. Shallan had killed her mother. Her father had covered it up, pretended he’d murdered his wife, and the event had destroyed his life—driving him to anger and destruction.
Until eventually Shallan had killed him too.
“Shallan?” Adolin asked. “Are you well?”
No.
“Sure. Fine. Anyway, we aren’t alone. Pattern, come here please.” She held out her hand, palm up.
He reluctantly moved down from the wall where he’d been watching. As always, he made a ripple in whatever he crossed, be it cloth or stone—like there was something under the surface. His complex, fluctuating pattern of lines was always changing, melding, vaguely circular but with surprising tangents.
He crossed up her dress and onto her hand, then split out from beneath her skin and rose into the air, expanding fully into three dimensions. He hovered there, a black, eye-bending network of shifting lines—some patterns shrinking while others expanded, rippling across his surface like a field of moving grass.
She would not hate him. She could hate the sword she’d used to kill her mother, but not him. She managed to push aside the pain for now—not forgetting it, but hopefully not letting it spoil her time with Adolin.
“Prince Adolin,” Shallan said, “I believe you’ve heard my spren’s voice before. Let me introduce you formally. This is Pattern.”
Adolin knelt, reverent, and stared at the mesmerizing geometries. Shallan didn’t blame him; she’d lost herself more than once in that network of lines and shapes that almost seemed to repeat, but never quite did.
“Your spren,” Adolin said. “A Shallanspren.”
Pattern sniffed in annoyance at that.
“He’s called a Cryptic,” she said. “Every order of Radiant bonds a different variety of spren, and that bond lets me do what I do.”
“Craft illusions,” Adolin said softly. “Like that one with the map the other day.”
Shallan smiled and—realizing she had just a smidge of Stormlight left from her illusion earlier—was unable to resist showing off. She raised her sleeved safehand and breathed out, sending a shimmering patch of Stormlight above the blue cloth. It formed into a small image of Adolin from her sketches of him in his Shardplate. This one remained frozen, Shardblade on his shoulder, faceplate up—like a little doll.
“This is an incredible talent, Shallan,” Adolin said, poking at the version of himself—which fuzzed, offering no resistance. He paused, then poked at Pattern, who shied back. “Why do you insist on hiding this, pretending that you’re a different order than you are?”
“Well,” she said, thinking fast and closing her hand, dismissing the image of Adolin. “I just think it might give us an edge. Sometimes secrets are important.”
Adolin nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, they are.”
“Anyway,” Shallan said. “Pattern, you’re to be our chaperone tonight.”
“What,” Pattern said with a hum, “is a chaperone?”
“That is someone who watches two young people when they are together, to make certain they don’t do anything inappropriate.”
“Inappropriate?” Pattern said. “Such as … dividing by zero?”
“What?” Shallan asked, looking to Adolin, who shrugged. “Look, just keep an eye on us. It will be all right.”
Pattern hummed, melting down into his two-dimensional form and taking up residence on the side of a bowl. He seemed content there, like a cremling snuggled into its crack.
Unable to wait any longer, Shallan dug into her meal. Adolin settled down across from her and attacked his own food. For a time, Shallan ignored her pain and savored the moment—good food, good company, the setting sun casting ruby and topaz light across the mountains and into the room. She felt like drawing this scene, but knew it was the type of moment she couldn’t capture on a page. It wasn’t about content or composition, but the pleasure of living.
The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate.
Adolin—after finishing an entire plate of stranna haspers steamed in the shell—picked out a few chunks of pork from a creamy red curry, then put them on a plate and handed them in her direction. “Wanna try a bite?”
Shallan made a gagging noise.
“Come on,” he said, wagging the plate. “It’s delicious.”
“It would burn my lips off, Adolin Kholin,” Shallan said. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you picking the absolute spiciest concoction Palona sent. Men’s food is dreadful. How can you taste anything beneath all that spice?”
“Keeps it from being bland,” Adolin said, stabbing one of the chunks and popping it in his mouth. “There’s nobody here but us. You can try it.”
She eyed it, remembering the times as a child when she’d sneaked tastes of men’s food—though not this specific dish.
Pattern buzzed. “Is this the inappropriate thing I’m supposed to stop you from doing?”
“No,” Shallan said, and Pattern settled back down. Perhaps a chaperone, she thought, who believes basically everything I tell him isn’t going to be the most effective.
Still, with a sigh, she grabbed a chunk of the pork in some flatbread. She had left Jah Keved hunting new experiences, after all.
She tried a bite, and was given immediate reason to regret her decisions in life.
Eyes brimming with tears, she scrambled for the cup of water Adolin, insufferably, had picked up to hand toward her. She gulped that down, though it didn’t seem to do anything. She followed it by wiping her tongue with a napkin—in the most feminine way possible, of course.
“I hate you,” she said, drinking his water next.
Adolin chuckled.
“Oh!” Pattern said suddenly, bursting up from the bowl to hover in the air. “You were talking about mating! I’m to make sure you don’t accidentally mate, as mating is forbidden by human society until you have first performed appropriate rituals! Yes, yes. Mmmm. Dictates of custom require following certain patterns before you copulate. I’ve been studying this!”
“Oh, Stormfather,” Shallan said, covering her eyes with her freehand. A few shamespren even peeked in for a glimpse before vanishing. Twice in one week.
“Very well, you two,” Pattern said. “No mating. NO MATING.” He hummed to himself, as if pleased, then sank down onto a plate.
“Well, that was humiliating,” Shallan said. “Can we maybe talk about those books you brought? Or ancient Vorin theology, or strategies for counting grains of sand? Anything other than what just happened? Please?”
Adolin chuckled, then reached for a slim notebook that was on top of the pile. “May Aladar sent teams to question Vedekar Perel’s family and friends. They discovered where he was before he died, who last saw him, and wrote down anything suspicious. I thought we could read the report.”
“And the rest of the books?”