Words of Radiance

And, Ash’s eyes… he had a very friendly way about him. She hadn’t expected that in someone so highborn. She’d never actually met anyone of his rank before coming to the Shattered Plains, but all the men she knew near his level had been stiff and even angry.

Not Adolin. Storms, but being with him was something else she could get very, very used to.

People began to stir on the patio. She ignored them for a moment, but then many began to stand up from their seats, looking eastward.

Highstorm. Right.

Shallan felt a spike of alarm as she looked toward the Origin of Storms. The wind picked up, leaves and bits of refuse fluttering across the patio. Down below, the Outer Market had been packed up, tents folded away, awnings withdrawn, windows closed. The entirety of the warcamps braced itself.

Shallan stuffed her things into her satchel, then rose to her feet, stepping to the edge of the terrace, freehand fingers on the stone railing there. Adolin joined her. Behind them, people whispered and gathered. She heard iron grinding across stone; the parshmen had begun pulling away the tables and chairs, stowing them to both protect them and make a path for the lighteyes to retreat to safety.

The horizon had bled from light to dark, like a man flushing with anger. Shallan gripped the railing, watching the entire world transform. Vines withdrew, rockbuds closed. Grass hid in its holes. They knew, somehow. They all knew.

The air grew chill and wet, and prestorm winds gusted against her, blowing her hair back. Below and just to the north, the warcamps had piled refuse and waste to be blown away with the storm. It was a forbidden practice in most civilized areas, where that waste could blow into the next town. Out here, there was no next town.

The horizon grew even darker. A few people on the balcony fled to the back room’s safety, their nerves getting the better of them. Most stayed, silent. Windspren zipped in tiny rivers of light overhead. Shallan took Adolin by the arm, staring eastward. Minutes passed until finally, she saw it.

The stormwall.

A huge sheet of water and debris blown before the storm. In places, it flashed with light from behind, revealing movement and shadows within. Like the skeleton of a hand when light illuminated the flesh, there was something inside this wall of destruction.

Most of the people fled the balcony, though the stormwall was still distant. In moments, only a handful remained, Shallan and Adolin among them. She watched, transfixed, as the storm approached. It took longer than she’d expected. It was moving at a terrible speed, but it was so large, they’d been able to spot it from quite a distance.

It consumed the Shattered Plains, one plateau at a time. Soon, it loomed over the warcamps, coming on with a roar.

“We should go,” Adolin eventually said. She barely heard him.

Life. Something lived inside that storm, something that no artist had ever drawn, no scholar had ever described.

“Shallan!” Adolin began to tow her toward the protected room. She grabbed the railing with her freehand, remaining in place, clutching her satchel to her chest with her safehand. That humming, that was Pattern.

She’d never been so close to a highstorm. Even when she’d been only inches away from one, separated by a window shutter, she had not been as close as she was now. Watching that darkness descend upon the warcamps…

I need to draw.

“Shallan!” Adolin said, pulling her away from the railing. “They’ll close the doors if we don’t go now!”

With a start, she realized that everyone else had left the balcony. She allowed Adolin to get her moving, and she joined him in a dash across the empty patio. They reached the room at the side, packed with huddled lighteyes who watched in terror. Adolin’s guards entered right after her, and several parshmen slammed the thick doors. The bar thumped in place, locking out the sky, leaving them to the light of spheres on the walls.

Shallan counted. The highstorm hit—she could feel it. Something beyond the thumping of the door and the distant sound of thunder.

“Six seconds,” she said.

“What?” Adolin asked. His voice was hushed, and others in the room spoke in whispers.

“It took six seconds after the servants closed the doors until the storm hit. We could have spent that much longer out there.”

Adolin regarded her with an incredulous expression. “When you first realized what we were doing on that balcony, you seemed terrified.”

“I was.”

“Now you wish you’d stayed out until the last moment before the storm hit?”

“I… yeah,” she said, blushing.

“I have no idea what to make of you.” Adolin regarded her. “You’re not like anyone I’ve met.”

“It’s my air of feminine mystique.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“It’s a term we use,” she said, “when we’re feeling particularly erratic. It’s considered polite not to point out that you know this. Now, do we just… wait in here?”