Words of Radiance

“Your superior, however, was not a member of our organization. Tyn thought herself to be the hunter, but she was game all along. If you are to join us, you should understand. We are not like others you may have known. We have a greater purpose, and we are… protective of one another.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So who are you?” he asked, waving for his servant to bring back the blowgun. “Who are you really, Veil?”

“Someone who wants to be part of things,” Shallan said. “Things more important than stealing from the odd lighteyes or scamming for a weekend of luxury.”

“So it is a hunt, then,” Mraize said softly, grinning. He turned away from her, walking back to the edge of the pavilion. “More instructions will follow. Do the task assigned to you. Then we shall see.”

It is a hunt, then…

What kind of hunt? Shallan felt chilled by that statement.

Once again, her dismissal was uncertain, but she did up her satchel and started to leave. As she did so, she glanced at the remaining seated people. Their expressions were cold. Frighteningly so.

Shallan left the pavilion and found that the rain had stopped. She walked away, feeling eyes on her back. They all know that I can identify them with exactness, she realized, and can present accurate pictures of them for any who request.

They would not like that. Mraize had made it clear that Ghostbloods didn’t often kill one another. But he’d also made it clear that she wasn’t one of them, not yet. He’d said it pointedly, as if granting permission to those listening in.

Talat’s hand, what had she gotten herself into?

You’re only considering that now? she thought as she rounded the hillside. Her carriage was ahead, the coachman lounging on top, his back to her. Shallan looked anxiously over her shoulder. Nobody had followed yet, at least not that she could see.

“Is anyone watching, Pattern?” she asked.

“Mmm. Me. No people.”

A rock. She’d drawn a boulder in the picture for Mraize. Not thinking—working by instinct and no small amount of panic—she breathed out Stormlight and shaped an image of that boulder before her.

Then, she promptly hid inside of it.

It was dark in there. She curled up in the boulder, sitting with her legs pulled against her. It felt undignified. The other people Mraize worked with probably didn’t do silly things like this. They were practiced, smooth, capable. Storms, she probably didn’t need to be hiding in the first place.

She sat there anyway. The looks in the eyes of the others… the way that Mraize had spoken…

Better to be overly cautious than naive. She was tired of people assuming she couldn’t care for herself.

“Pattern,” she whispered. “Go to the carriage driver. Tell him this, in my exact voice. ‘I have entered the carriage when you weren’t looking. Do not look. My exit must be stealthy. Carry me back to the city. Pull up to the warcamps and wait to a count of ten. I will leave. Do not look. You have your payment, and discretion was part of it.’”

Pattern hummed and moved off. A short time later, the carriage rattled away, pulled by its parshmen. It didn’t take long for hoofbeats to follow. She hadn’t seen horses.

Shallan waited, anxious. Would any of the Ghostbloods realize this boulder wasn’t supposed to be here? Would they come back, looking for her once they didn’t see her leave the carriage at the warcamps?

Perhaps they hadn’t even gone after her. Perhaps she was being paranoid. She waited, pained. It started raining again. What would that do to her illusion? The stone she’d drawn had already been wet, so dryness wouldn’t give it away—but from the way the rain fell on her, it obviously was passing through the image.

I need to find a way to see the outside while I’m hiding like this, she thought. Eyeholes? Could she make those inside her illusion? Perhaps she—

Voices.

“We will need to find how much he knows.” Mraize’s voice. “You will bring these pages to Master Thaidakar. We are close, but so—it appears—are Restares’s cronies.”

The response came in a rasping voice. Shallan couldn’t make it out.

“No, I’m not worried about that one. The old fool sows chaos, but does not reach for the power offered by opportunity. He hides in his insignificant city, listening to its songs, thinking he plays in world events. He has no idea. His is not the position of the hunter. This creature in Tukar, however, is different. I’m not convinced he is human. If he is, he’s certainly not of the local species…”

Mraize continued speaking, but Shallan heard no more as they moved off. A short time later, she heard more hoofbeats.