“You seemed lost when Father asked you about Makabaki politics,” Adolin said, pouring some wine, merely a soft yellow. “So I asked around, and it seems that some of the ardents hauled their entire libraries out here. I was able to get a servant to locate you a few books I’d enjoyed on the Makabaki.”
“Books?” Shallan said. “You?”
“I don’t spend all my time hitting people with swords, Shallan,” Adolin said. “Jasnah and Aunt Navani made very certain that my youth was filled with interminable periods spent listening to ardents lecture me on politics and trade. Some of it stuck in my brain, against my natural inclinations. Those three books are the best of the ones I remember having read to me, though the last one is an updated version. I thought it might help.”
“That’s thoughtful,” she said. “Really, Adolin. Thank you.”
“I figured, you know, if we’re going to move forward with the betrothal…”
“Why wouldn’t we?” Shallan said, suddenly panicked.
“I don’t know. You’re a Radiant, Shallan. Some kind of half-divine being from mythology. And all along I was thinking we were giving you a favorable match.” He stood up and started pacing. “Damnation. I didn’t mean to say it like that. I’m sorry. I just … I keep worrying that I’m going to screw this up somehow.”
“You worry you’re going to screw it up?” Shallan said, feeling a warmth inside that wasn’t completely due to the wine.
“I’m not good with relationships, Shallan.”
“Is there anyone who actually is? I mean, is there really someone out there who looks at relationships and thinks, ‘You know what, I’ve got this’? Personally, I rather think we’re all collectively idiots about it.”
“It’s worse for me.”
“Adolin, dear, the last man I had a romantic interest in was not only an ardent—forbidden to court me in the first place—but also turned out to be an assassin who was merely trying to obtain my favor so he could get close to Jasnah. I think you overestimate everyone else’s capability in this regard.”
He stopped pacing. “An assassin.”
“Seriously,” Shallan said. “He almost killed me with a loaf of poisoned bread.”
“Wow. I have to hear this story.”
“Fortunately, I just told it to you. His name was Kabsal, and he was so incredibly sweet to me that I can almost forgive him for trying to kill me.”
Adolin grinned. “Well, it’s nice to hear that I don’t have a high bar to jump—all I have to do is not poison you. Though you shouldn’t be telling me about past lovers. You’ll make me jealous.”
“Please,” Shallan said, dipping her bread in some leftover sweet curry. Her tongue still hadn’t recovered. “You’ve courted, like, half the warcamps.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Isn’t it? From what I hear, I’d have to go to Herdaz to find an eligible woman you haven’t pursued.” She held out her hand to him, to help her to her feet.
“Are you mocking my failings?”
“No, I’m lauding them,” she said, standing up beside him. “You see, Adolin dear, if you hadn’t wrecked all those other relationships, you wouldn’t be here. With me.” She pulled close. “And so, in reality, you’re the greatest at relationships there ever was. You ruined only the wrong ones, you see.”
He leaned down. His breath smelled of spices, his uniform of the crisp, clean starch Dalinar required. His lips touched hers, and her heart fluttered. So warm.
“No mating!”
She started, pulling out of the kiss to find Pattern hovering beside them, pulsing quickly through shapes.
Adolin bellowed a laugh, and Shallan couldn’t help joining in at the ridiculousness of it. She stepped back from him, but kept hold on his hand. “Neither of us is going to mess this up,” she said to him, squeezing his hand. “Despite what might at times seem like our best efforts otherwise.”
“Promise?” he asked.
“I promise. Let’s look at this notebook of yours and see what it says about our murderer.”
14. Squires Can’t Capture
In this record, I hold nothing back. I will try not to shy away from difficult topics, or paint myself in a dishonestly heroic light.
Kaladin crept through the rains, sidling in a wet uniform across the rocks until he was able to peek through the trees at the Voidbringers. Monstrous terrors from the mythological past, enemies of all that was right and good. Destroyers who had laid waste to civilization countless times.
They were playing cards.
What in Damnation’s depths? Kaladin thought. The Voidbringers had posted a single guard, but the creature had simply been sitting on a tree stump, easy to avoid. A decoy, Kaladin had assumed, figuring he would find the true guard watching from the heights of the trees.
If there was a hidden guard though, Kaladin had missed spotting them—and they’d missed Kaladin in equal measure. The dim light served him well, as he was able to settle between some bushes right at the edge of the Voidbringer camp. Between trees they had stretched tarps, which leaked horribly. In one place they’d made a proper tent, fully enclosed with walls—and he couldn’t see what was inside.
There wasn’t enough shelter, so many sat out in the rain. Kaladin spent a torturous few minutes expecting to be spotted. All they had to do was notice that these bushes had drawn in their leaves at his touch.
Nobody looked, fortunately. The leaves timidly peeked back out, obscuring him. Syl landed on his arm, hands on her hips as she surveyed the Voidbringers. One of them had a set of wooden Herdazian cards, and he sat at the edge of the camp—directly before Kaladin—using a flat surface of stone as a table. A female sat opposite him.
They looked different from what he expected. For one thing, their skin was a different shade—many parshmen here in Alethkar had marbled white and red skin, rather than the deep red on black like Rlain from Bridge Four. They didn’t wear warform, though neither did they wear some terrible, powerful form. Though they were squat and bulky, their only carapace ran along the sides of their forearms and jutted out at their temples, leaving them with full heads of hair.
They still wore their simple slave smocks, tied at the waists with strings. No red eyes. Did that change, perhaps, like his own eyes?
The male—distinguished by a dark red beard, the hairs each unnaturally thick—finally placed a card on the rock next to several others.
“Can you do that?” the female asked.
“I think so.”
“You said squires can’t capture.”
“Unless another card of mine is touching yours,” the male said. He scratched at his beard. “I think?”
Kaladin felt cold, like the rainwater was seeping in through his skin, penetrating all the way to his blood and washing through him. They spoke like Alethi. Not a hint of an accent. With his eyes closed, he wouldn’t have been able to tell these voices from those of common darkeyed villagers from Hearthstone, save for the fact that the female had a deeper voice than most human women.
“So…” the female said. “You’re saying you don’t know how to play the game after all.”