I have begun searching for a pathway out of this conundrum by seeking the ideal person to act on my behalf. Someone who embodies both Preservation and Ruin. A … sword, you might say, who can both protect and kill.

Adolin glanced up as he heard the call from the watchpost at the front of the barge. Land sighted.

Finally, he thought, giving Gallant a firm pat on the neck. The animal nickered in anticipation.

“Trust me,” he said to the Ryshadium, “I’m as happy to land as you are.” Adolin had always been fond of traveling—feeling the open breeze on your face, the welcoming sky overhead. Who knew what exotic tastes and fashions you’d find at your destination? Taking a ship, though, was excruciating. No space to run, no good sparring grounds. A ship was a cage without bars.

He left Gallant and rushed up to the barge’s prow. A dark strip of obsidian broke the sea ahead, with quiet lights shimmering above. Not souls, but actual candles in the windows of small structures. In Shadesmar, spren could manifest the beads that represented the soul of a fire—and in so doing, create flames that provided light, but very little heat.

Others gathered at the sides of the barge, and Godeke joined Adolin on the small upper deck. The lanky Edgedancer seemed as eager as Adolin to be off the boat; Adolin had seen Godeke pacing more than once these last few days.

Unfortunately, the responsible side of Adolin—drilled into him over years with his father—made him call for caution. “We don’t know the situation in this town yet,” he said to the others. “Last time I was in Shadesmar, the first town we entered ended up being held by the Fused. We should send some of the Lightweavers in, wearing disguises, to scout.”

“You will not find danger here,” Ua’pam promised, rubbing his knuckles together in a curious gesture, making a sound like two rocks grinding. “These are free lands. Neither honorspren nor Fused control this outpost.”

“Still,” Adolin said, looking to the others. “Humans, under the tarp until we’ve done some basic scouting.”

Grumbling, they gathered their horses and moved into the large “room” under the tarps. Shallan was resting here already; most of them had opted to place their bedrolls here, where the tall boxes of cargo had been stacked to make various nooks and cubbies.

Adolin nudged her. “Shallan? You all right?”

The dark lump that was his wife stirred. “Might have had a little too much to drink last night.”

Adolin smiled. The trip had been genuinely relaxing, save for his worry about their destination. It had been good to spend time with Shallan—and he had enjoyed even the appearances of Veil and Radiant. The latter made an excellent sparring partner, and the former knew a seemingly infinite number of card games. Some of which were good Vorin games, and others … well, they had too much randomness for propriety, but were more fun than Adolin had expected.

It had culminated with Shallan pulling out an excellent Thaylen violet, Kdisln vintage, last night. As usual, she’d had a few more cups than Adolin. Shallan had a strange relationship with drink, one that varied based on her persona. But since she could burn off the effects using Stormlight, she theoretically could never be drunk unless she wanted to be. It baffled him why she would sometimes go to sleep like she did, risking the morning hangover.

“I want someone to scout the town before we go in,” Adolin said. “You want me to send—”

“I’ll go,” she said, climbing out of her bedroll. “Give me a few minutes.”

True to her word, she was ready a short time later, wearing a Lightweaving that made her look like a cultivationspren. She took Vathah in a similar disguise, and the two of them disembarked with Ua’pam and his cousin to walk through the town.

The rest of them waited under the tarp. Godeke fished in his pockets and brought out a few spheres. His personal money seemed to mostly have been chips—which had gone dun by this point. They’d seen a highstorm several times—storms manifested here as shimmering lights in the sky—but the spheres hadn’t been recharged.

“Even the broam I brought is starting to fade,” Godeke noted, holding up the amethyst to give light to the darkness under the tarp. “The larger gemstones we brought probably won’t last until we reach the fortress, Brightlord.”

Adolin nodded. They’d gone over the Stormlight budget a dozen times leading up to leaving. No matter how they’d been able to spin it, there wasn’t a way to reach Lasting Integrity with any Stormlight remaining. So the gifts they’d brought were things Syl said would be appreciated: newly written books, puzzles made of iron that could engage the mind for hours, and some weapons.

There was one way they might have brought Stormlight that lasted longer. The Thaylens owned gemstones that were—because of their near-perfect structures—capable of retaining Stormlight over long time periods. The best of those had been used a year ago to capture one of the Unmade, and Jasnah wanted the others for experiments.

Jasnah had mentioned something else about these near-flawless gemstones that troubled her. She found it odd that the gemstones in circulation as spheres were always so flawed that they lost Light quickly. She said that they should vary, and more perfect ones should be found on occasion—but that wasn’t the case.

Why was she concerned by that? He pondered the question as he waited for Shallan, and tried to trace Jasnah’s thoughts. What if someone had been in the know, while everyone else thought gemstones were all basically the same? If you knew the supreme value of gemstones that could hold Stormlight over long trips through Shadesmar, you could spend years gathering them.

He frowned, considering it. Finally, he glanced at Godeke, who was holding up one of his fading broams.

“When you’re free to go into the city,” Adolin told him, “take most of our remaining Stormlight and do as we discussed. Trade it for supplies to use on the next leg of our trip—then spend the remainder to load up the barge.”

Ua’pam’s cousin would wait at the town to guard their supplies. Adolin’s group only needed to carry enough to get to and from Lasting Integrity.

Assuming everything went well with Shallan’s investigation of the town. As they waited, Adolin found himself feeling increasingly anxious. He felt like something was going to drop on him. Had the trip here been too easy?

He passed the time checking on his soldiers and scribe. As they were in good spirits, Adolin checked on Maya. She sat in a little nook at the rear of the room, and Adolin had to pull out a gemstone—a thick sapphire, big as his thumb—to get enough light to see her.

Maya stared at it. Her eyes had been scratched out by the events of the Recreance, but she could still see. She’d been blinded without going blind, killed without dying. The ways of spren were strange.

“Hey,” he said, crouching down. “We’ll soon be able to go ashore.”

She didn’t respond, as usual—though as one of the peakspren passed outside the tarp awning, she snapped her head to stare in that direction.

“Anxious too, eh?” Adolin said. “We both need to calm down. Here.” He moved to where his things had been stored and took out his longsword, then fell into a stance. The ceiling of the tarp was a good foot over his head, and most everyone had clustered on the other side, near Godeke and the spheres. So he had some space for a basic kata.

Each day, Maya joined him in his morning stretching routines, where he did a centering kata that Zahel had taught him years ago. Would she follow a different kata, if he showed it to her? A longsword was a bad imitation of a Shardblade, but it was the closest he had.

He placed his sapphire on the top of his closed sword trunk for light, then fell into a slow, careful kata meant to teach thrusting practice. Nothing flashy, no stupid twirls or spins of the blade. A basic exercise, but one he’d done hundreds of times with his Shardblade on the practice grounds. This particular portion imitated hallway fighting, where you couldn’t swing too high or too far to the sides, lest you hit stone. So it was perfect for this enclosed space.

Maya watched him, her head cocked.

“You know this one,” he told her. “Remember? Hallway fighting. Practice with thrusts and controlled swings?”

He started over, but slower. One motion flowing into the other. Step, good two-handed grip, lunge forward with a thrust, then reset while turning the other direction. Back and forth, a rhythm, a song without music. A fight without an opponent.

Maya hesitantly stood up, so he paused. She walked over to him, inspecting his sword with her head still cocked. The fine intertwining vines of her face looked like sinew, a human face with the skin removed. She traced the length of the sword with her gaze.

Adolin reset again. Maya carefully did the same beside him—and her form was perfect. Even Zahel on his worst day wouldn’t have found reason to reset her stance. Adolin slowly moved through the kata, and she followed—holding nothing but empty air, but moving in lockstep with him as he thrust, then reset, then turned.

Conversation on the other side of the enclosure died off, spren and soldiers alike watching. Soon they faded from Adolin’s attention. It was just him, the sword, and Maya. The relaxing repetition made his tension melt away. Katas were about more than training; they were a way to focus. That was something every young swordsman needed to learn, whether he intended to fight in duels or lead a battlefield charge. Adolin felt sorry for those who had never known the centering peace of training; it could turn aside even the mightiest of storms.

After some time—Adolin didn’t notice how much—Shallan ducked under the tarp. She’d dismissed her Lightweaving, so plainly didn’t consider them to be in any danger. Ua’pam, however, stared at Maya, the cracks in his skin pouring a molten light over the deck and the bottom of the tarp.

Adolin finally stopped, Maya pausing beside him. As he relaxed and wiped his brow, she settled back down in her little cubby.

Ua’pam walked up to him, scratching at his head in a distinctly human gesture. “Another kata?” he asked. “This is more than simple training. Truly, you must tell me. How have you done this? Each day, your training of her proves more remarkable.”

Adolin shrugged, snatching a towel as Felt tossed it to him. “She remembers the times we’ve sparred together as man and Blade.”

“She’s a deadeye,” Ua’pam said. “She was killed thousands of years ago. She doesn’t think. The trauma of her Radiant betraying her broke her mind.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it’s wearing off.”

“We are spren. We are eternal. Our deaths do not merely ‘wear off.’”

Adolin tossed the towel back to Felt. “And spren were never going to bond humans again—yet here you are, Zu’s companion spren. Words like ‘eternal’ and ‘forever’ aren’t as definitive as you all pretend.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Ua’pam said.

“And that might just be why Maya and I are able to do things you think impossible.” Adolin glanced at Shallan. “We’re good to go into town?”

“No hints of Fused activity,” she said. “Lots of caravans come through here—some are even camped outside the town—and humans aren’t unusual in them. The spren at this waystop won’t consider us odd. We merely need to tell everyone we’re traders.”

“Right then,” Adolin said. “Let’s all get off this boat and stretch our legs. Stay together in groups though, and don’t make trouble.”

*   *   *

Shallan continued to have a hangover. Her brain pounded, incessant, angry. A kind of “How could you?” accusation. She worried that now that they had reached land, she might attract painspren—which could be dangerous.

This is your fault, Veil, Radiant thought at her. How could you let us go to sleep without burning off the wine?

I wasn’t thinking straight, Veil thought. That’s kind of the point of drinking.…

She can’t use Stormlight very well, Shallan thought. Don’t blame her. At least the pain was fading. When she’d taken in Stormlight to put on her illusory face, it had healed some of the agony. Stormlight was precious, however, and she’d used only what she needed to get her illusion going.

She probably could spare a little more.

No, Radiant thought. We should suffer, as our punishment for abusing drink.

It’s not Shallan’s fault, Veil complained. She shouldn’t have to hurt because of what I did.

I had more than a few cups myself, Shallan thought. So let’s drop this.

The others—eager to get out and see the town—broke up into teams, though Adolin waited for her. They walked onto the simple stone dock and into the town—though “town” was a generous term for it. She’d been able to walk through all four streets in under half an hour.

Still, although small, the place presented a shocking variety of spren, most of them coming from the five or six caravans that were camped here at the moment. Even from her perspective now, she was able to spot six different varieties. She’d taken some Memories to continue her natural history—and intended to go back out and get a few more.

Plus, some of those caravans had humans in them. Who were they? How had they found their way to this side? Were they from other lands, like Azure? She longed to get back out and do closer inspections.

Except … Veil said. You know.

She did. This might be a chance to—after two weeks of travel—finally have some time alone. Indeed, Unativi’s sailors were drawing lots to determine who had to stay on the barge to guard it. Perhaps …

“Go on ahead,” Veil said, pulling her hat on—from where it had been hanging behind her neck by its laces—so Adolin knew who she was. “I’ve had a chance to stretch my legs; I think I’ll rest a little more.”

“You should drink less,” Adolin said.

She poked him on the shoulder. “You should stop sounding like your father.”

“Low blow, Veil,” he said with a wince. “But point taken. Watch our things.”

He went and got Maya, who followed when he asked. He likely thought she needed to get some exercise or something. He was a little strange about that spren.

I think the way he cares for her is sweet, Shallan thought.

Maybe it was. But it was strange too. Veil sauntered over to Unativi. “You can all go, if you want,” she said to the group of peakspren. “I’m going to stay behind anyway, so I can watch the barge.”

Unativi studied her, the light of his molten interior growing brighter through the cracks in his skin. “You stay? Why?”

She shrugged. “I’ve had a chance already today. You can all go; the boat doesn’t need more than one guard. It’s not like there’s any danger here, right?”

“If there were,” Unativi said, “you are Radiant. Better at facing it than a peakspren!” He turned to his sailors, who seemed eager. A couple of weeks on the same barge could make anyone bored of the scenery, including sailors.

Soon, Veil was blessedly alone. So far this trip, she’d been alone only when using the chamber pot in the draped-off section beneath the tarp. Even that had been situated far too near everyone else for comfort. She—

“Mmmmm…”

She spun and found that of course Pattern was still there. Watching her. “Going to contact Mraize, Veil?” he asked with a peppy voice. “Mmm…”

Yes, she was. All three were in agreement that they needed to talk to him, but it was uncomfortable how easily Pattern recognized this.

“Stay here,” she said to him, “and make certain nobody interrupts me.”

“Oh. I can’t listen?” His pattern slowed, seeming to almost wilt. “I like Mraize. He is very strange. Ha ha.”

“It would be better if someone were to watch out for me,” Veil said. Then she sighed. “Though it might be good for you to listen to Mraize too. You might spot something untrue that he says.”

“I do not think he says things that are fully untrue,” Pattern said. “Which makes his lies the best. Mmm. But I cannot tell automatically if something is a lie. I can simply appreciate them better than most, once I realize what they are.”

Well, in Veil’s experience, he was more expert at noticing subterfuge than many humans. She waved for him to join her under the awning, still happy to be mostly alone.

Part of her worried about that emotion. She’d lived a double life for basically the entire time she’d known Adolin—and it put a strain on Shallan. Worse, lying to herself was so ingrained it was becoming second nature.

This is a problem, Shallan, Veil thought as she made her way back to her trunk.

I’m getting better, Shallan retorted. No new personas in over a year now.

And Formless? Radiant demanded.

Formless isn’t real. Not yet, Shallan thought. We’re close to getting out of the Ghostbloods. One more mission, and we’re done. And Formless won’t manifest.

Veil had her suspicions. And she had to admit, she was a big part of the problem herself. Shallan idealized how Veil was able to live so relaxed, without worrying about her past or the things she’d done. Indeed, Shallan conflated this attitude with the life the Ghostbloods lived. A life she was beginning to envy …

Get answers, Shallan thought. Stop thinking about this. We need to contact Mraize before time runs out.

Veil sighed, but positioned Pattern near the open front of the tarp enclosure. He would be able to hear the conversation with Mraize, but could warn her if someone came onto the barge. Then she unlocked her trunk of personal effects.

Here she paused. Then she let Shallan take over for a few moments. Long enough to be certain.

Yes, Shallan thought. It has been moved again.

They’d checked it every day since that first time, and this was only the second time it had been moved. The night she’d gotten drunk. Inside, Radiant groaned in annoyance.

Sorry, Veil thought, taking over. But we can’t watch it all the time. Besides, we want the spy to feel comfortable using it, right? So that we have more chances to catch them?

Regardless, she couldn’t deny it felt creepy to know someone had snuck in and somehow used the cube while she was snoring a few feet away. She lifted the cube and inspected it. Other than having been set so a different face was up, nothing about it seemed different.

How did she activate it? Mraize had said to use his name. “I need to speak to Mraize. Um, that’s actually his title rather than his name.…”

The cube’s corners began to shine from a bright light inside, as if the metal were thinner there.

“I know him,” the cube said, making Veil start.

“You can talk!” she said.

It didn’t reply. She frowned, looking closely at the seams—the glow shimmered and changed. A short time later a strong voice came from inside, making the cube quiver in her hands.

“Little knife,” Mraize said. “I’ve been waiting.”

*   *   *

Adolin kept to his own rules, and didn’t wander off alone. He and Maya stuck close to his soldiers and scribe, who walked the small town in a tight cluster, laughing too loudly as they chatted—as if trying to prove they were absolutely not nervous to be in such a strange location.

Normally he would have joined in to put them at ease, but he found himself weighed down by the seriousness of the task ahead of him. His worries were resurfacing, now that the voyage was over. He needed to prove he could bring the honorspren to the coalition. After failing at Kholinar, he just … he needed to do this. Not for his father. For the coalition. For the war. For his homeland.

He tried to focus on the next step, which involved getting supplies at this waystop. It was basically a market, meant to cater to caravans and merchant ships. Like in Celebrant—the other spren city he’d visited—most of the buildings were made up of a mishmash of types of stone, speckled a variety of colors. Manifested building materials. Real rock and metal were far more valuable here, as they had to be transported in through a portal like the Oathgates.

There was no cohesive sense of architecture to the buildings. Azish influences were most common, but spren took what they could get, and so ended up with a patchwork of designs and styles. Most of the spren running the shops appeared to be cultivationspren. They called out offers in Azish or Alethi, offering fresh water or food supplies they knew humans might want.

Browsing the goods were spren of all varieties. Of those, he found the ashspren the most transfixing. They looked like people, but their flesh would crumble off at times, exposing bone. As he passed one, she snapped her fingers, making all the ash of her hand blow away and vanish—then it quickly grew back. He even spotted a couple of highspren, like tears in reality in the shape of people. He gave them a wide berth, though they seemed to be just another pair of merchants.

Spren clothing was as eclectic as their building materials. He passed one peakspren wearing a Veden uniform coat over a Tashikki wrap, of all things. It should have been garish—and certainly Adolin would never have worn any of it together—but he didn’t find himself bothered. They’d taken human clothing and made it their own; why should they follow the trends of kingdoms in another world?

In that way, there was something fresh and interesting about the fashion here. Like the work of a talented but untrained artist. They came up with combinations that no member of Adolin’s culture could ever have dared imagine.

Though, he thought, passing a tall willowy spren of a type he didn’t recognize, someone ought to tell that one what a protective cup is used for on our side.…

His soldiers stopped to browse a weapon shop, though he’d warned them that they shouldn’t rely on manifested weapons. Still, it was difficult not to stare at the sheer variety of swords on display. In the Physical Realm a masterwork sword was an expensive purchase—and it often surprised people how valuable even an everyday side sword could be. Here though, manifesting a sword took roughly the same amount of Stormlight as manifesting a brick, so you could find them in barrels or stacked in piles outside shops.

This bizarre economy would certainly fascinate Shallan. He’d heard they kept near-perfect gemstones in spren banks, storing vast amounts of Stormlight for future use. And of course, having so many humans nearby had attracted small emotion spren, Shadesmar’s equivalent of animals. Gloryspren darted overhead, and fearspren huddled in alleyways looking like large, multi-legged eels with long, globby antennae.

A long flying spren with mustaches and a graceful body landed on the top of a building, then leaped off, ejecting an explosion of tiny crystalline shards that floated down and vanished. Was that a passionspren? He’d have to tell Shallan.

He turned toward the distant barge, where Shallan remained. Maya dutifully stopped beside him, but just stared straight ahead with her scratched-out eyes.

“I wonder why she stayed behind,” Adolin said. “It’s odd for her to want to rest when there’s so much to see.”

Maya didn’t respond. That didn’t prevent him from talking to her. She had a … relaxing air about her.

“Veil probably is in control,” Adolin said. “She’s worried about our things being stolen, I bet. Shallan says the other two exist to protect her or help her, and I see that. I want to understand. I don’t want to be like the others, who whisper about her being crazy and laugh.”

He looked to Maya, who looked back.

“It’s silly of me to be jealous of the time Veil controls her, isn’t it?” Adolin said. “Shallan created Veil as a tool. It’s just … I don’t know if I’m doing this right. I don’t know how to be supportive.”

He wasn’t good with relationships. He never had been. He could admit that to himself now. He’d been in dozens, and they’d all fallen apart—so he had all kinds of experience doing this wrong, but very little doing it right.

He wanted to do it right. He loved Shallan, in part because of her eccentricities. She felt alive in a different way from everyone else—she was also somehow more authentic. She was stuffed full of personas and covered in illusions. Yet incredibly, she felt more real because of them.

Adolin lingered, not wanting to get ahead of the others, and wished he could shove his hands in his pockets. Unfortunately, this uniform’s pockets were sewn shut. The trousers looked better that way.

He knew why he was feeling so off. Seeing another spren settlement reminded him of the last time they’d come to Shadesmar. When he’d been forced to leave Elhokar dead in his palace, the city fallen. Worse, Adolin had accidentally abandoned his troops to face the invasion while he ended up in Shadesmar.

He wasn’t one to stew and brood … but storms, if there was a man who deserved his place in Damnation, it was the general who left his men to die.

Adolin was drawn out of his brooding as he realized Maya was staring to the side, focused on something. That was odd enough, as she didn’t often pay much attention to her surroundings. But when he drew closer, he saw what had transfixed her. It was another deadeye.

This deadeye was a Cryptic who stood beside a storefront. Cryptics didn’t have eyes, but there was no mistaking that the creature had suffered Maya’s fate: the pattern had halted completely, the normally graceful lines twisted and turned in jagged directions, like broken fingers. The same odd scraping marred its center.

Maya released a kind of low whine from deep in her throat.

“I’m sorry,” Adolin said. “I know it’s distressing. Let’s move on quickly.”

She took his arm as he tried to walk off, which shocked him. It seemed to surprise her too, as she looked down at her hands holding his arm, then cocked her head. She held on and turned toward the deadeye Cryptic, pulling him. It was as if she wanted to say something.

His men were still shopping, so Adolin turned in the direction Maya wanted, heading toward the store with the deadeye. Like most he’d seen here in Shadesmar, the shop was open-sided—an awning in front of a small building where the shopkeepers probably lived. There weren’t storms to worry about here, so structures tended to have open-air designs that left Adolin feeling exposed.

The shopkeeper was an inkspren. Adolin had heard that there were fewer of them than there were of other varieties, and they kept to themselves. The creature was jet black, even reflective, like he was made out of stone—but with an oil-on-water shimmer of color when the light hit him right. He sold books, which he kept carefully on shelves, not in stacks and piles like many other shops.

“You are Alethi,” he said, inspecting Adolin. He spoke with a sharp nasal accent. “And you are male. You have no need for books. This is.”

“I wanted to ask after your deadeye,” Adolin said, nodding to the Cryptic.

“A friend she was,” the shopkeeper said, his voice terse.

“Back when there were Radiants.”

“No. A sooner time that was. My partner in business, once.” He frowned. “Do you know something of this, human? The danger that is?”

“What danger?”

“New deadeyes,” the shopkeeper said, shaking his head. “Radiants should not have started again. Do you know that this thing is? In your kingdom it began, did it not?”

“I don’t know of any Radiants betraying their oaths,” Adolin said. “You’re sure about this?”

The inkspren waved to his friend. “She was my partner for many centuries. She left ten years ago to join others hunting for Radiants. Last year I found her like this, sitting alone on an island far to the east. She insisted on coming out this direction—at least, she walked this way incessantly. So I set up shop here.”

“You’re sure,” Adolin said. “That she was afflicted like this recently.”

“My memory is not flawed,” the inkspren said. “This is what you do, killing spren. You should feel ashamed.” He looked at Maya. “Is this another you killed?”

“Of course not,” Adolin said. “I…” He trailed off, not wanting to say too much. He’d instructed everyone to be circumspect.

But … a new deadeye? That seemed impossible. Maybe … maybe some young new Surgebinder out in the backwaters of Bavland could have been left without support or friends, and had broken their oaths. It wasn’t too outlandish; the more they learned, the more they realized that Kaladin, Jasnah, and Shallan hadn’t been unique in forming new Radiant bonds these last few years. A general revolution had been happening all across Roshar, with spren sensing the coming of the Everstorm, and some returning to bond with humans.

He got nothing but more frosty accusations from the inkspren, so he returned to the street—and Maya let him. Had she somehow known this deadeye was strange? Was that why she’d wanted him to go in and talk to the shopkeeper?

He moved to join his men, but stopped as he saw Godeke and his spren hastening up the street. The former ardent had a graceful way about him as he arrived and fluidly bowed. “Brightlord, I think you’ll want to see this.”

“What? It’s not another deadeye spren, is it?”

“No,” Godeke said. “It’s the humans.”