Words of Radiance

She shivered, noticing that her false face blushed when she did. The nose moved when she wrinkled her own as well. That was a good thing, though she’d been hoping to be able to hide her embarrassment.

She pulled on one of Tyn’s white coats. The stiff thing went all the way down to the top of her boots, and she tied it at the waist with a thick black hogshide belt so that it was mostly closed in front, as Tyn had worn it. She finished by replacing the spheres in the pouch in her pocket with infused ones from the lamps in the room.

That flaw in her nose still bothered her. Something to shade the face, she thought, hurrying back to her trunk. There, she dug out Bluth’s white hat, the one with the sides that folded upward at a slant. Hopefully it would look better on her than it had on Bluth.

She put it on, and when she returned to the mirror, she was pleased with how it shaded her face. It did look kind of silly. But then, she felt that everything

about this outfit looked silly. A gloved hand? Trousers? The coat had seemed imposing on Tyn—it indicated experience and a sense of personal style. When Shallan wore it, she looked like she was pretending. She saw through the illusion to the frightened girl from rural Jah Keved.

Authority is not a real thing. Jasnah’s words. It is mere vapors—an illusion. I can create that illusion… as can you.

Shallan stood up taller, straightened the hat, then went to the bedroom and tucked a few things in her pockets, including the map of where to go. She walked to the window and pulled it open. Fortunately, she was on the ground floor.

“Here we go,” she whispered to Pattern.

Out she went, into the night.

43. The Ghostbloods

And thus were the disturbances in the Revv toparchy quieted, when, upon their ceasing to prosecute their civil dissensions, Nalan’Elin betook himself to finally accept the Skybreakers who had named him their master, when initially he had spurned their advances and, in his own interests, refused to countenance that which he deemed a pursuit of vanity and annoyance; this was the last of the Heralds to admit to such patronage.

From Words of Radiance, chapter 5, page 17

The warcamp was still busy, despite the hour. She wasn’t surprised; her time in Kharbranth had taught her that not everyone treated the arrival of night as a reason to stop working. Here, there were nearly as many people about in the streets as when she’d first ridden through.

And almost nobody paid attention to her.

For once, she didn’t feel conspicuous. Even in Kharbranth, people had glanced at her—noticed her, considered her. Some had thought of robbing her, others of how to use her. A young lighteyes without proper escort was distinctive, and possibly an opportunity. However, while wearing straight dark hair and dark brown eyes, she might as well have been invisible. It was wonderful

.

Shallan smiled, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her coat—she still felt embarrassed by that gloved safehand, though nobody even looked at it.

She reached an intersection. In one direction, the warcamp glittered with torches and oil lanterns. A market, busy enough that nobody trusted spheres in their lamps. Shallan walked toward it; she’d be safer on the more traveled streets. Her fingers crinkled on the paper in her pocket, and she drew it out as she stopped to wait for a group of chattering people to move from in front of her.

The map looked easy enough to parse. She just needed to get her bearings. She waited, then finally realized that the group in front of her wasn’t going to move. She was expecting them to defer to her as they would a lighteyes. Shaking her head at her foolishness, she went around them.

It continued like that; she was forced to squeeze through tight places between bodies, and was jostled as she walked. This market flowed like two rivers passing one another, with shops on either side and vendors peddling food in the center. It was even covered in some places by awnings that stretched across to the buildings on the other side.

Perhaps only ten paces across, it was a claustrophobic, bustling, jabbering mess. And Shallan loved it. She found herself wanting to stop and sketch half the people she passed. They all seemed so full of life, whether haggling or simply walking with a friend and chewing on a snack. Why hadn’t she gone out more in Kharbranth?