From the Diagram, Floorboard 27: paragraph 6
Like a river suddenly undammed, the four armies flooded out onto the plateaus. Shallan watched from horseback, excited, anxious. Her little part of the convoy included Vathah and her soldiers, along with Marri, her lady’s maid. Gaz, notably, hadn’t arrived yet, and Vathah claimed to not know where he was. Perhaps she should have looked more into the nature of his debts. She’d been so busy with other things… storms, if the man vanished, how would she feel about that?
She would have to deal with that later. Today, she was part of something extremely important—a story that had begun with Gavilar and Dalinar’s first hunting expedition into the Unclaimed Hills years ago. Now came the final chapter, the mission that would unearth the truth and determine the future of the Shattered Plains, the Parshendi, and perhaps Alethkar itself.
Shallan kicked her horse forward, eager. The gelding started to walk, placid despite Shallan’s prodding.
Storming animal.
Adolin trotted up beside her on Sureblood. The beautiful animal was pure white—not dusty grey, like some horses she’d seen, but actually white. That Adolin should have the larger horse was patently unfair. She was shorter than he was, so she should be on the taller horse.
“You purposely gave me a slow one,” Shallan complained, “didn’t you?”
“Sure did.”
“I’d smack you. If I could reach you up there.”
He chuckled. “You said you don’t have a lot of experience riding, so I picked a horse that had a lot of experience being ridden. Trust me, you’ll be thankful.”
“I want to ride in a majestic charge as we begin our expedition!”
“And you can do so.”
“Slowly.”
“Technically, slow speeds can be very majestic.”
“Technically,” she said, “a man doesn’t need all of his toes. Shall we remove a few of yours and prove it?”
He laughed. “As long as you don’t hurt my face, I suppose.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I like your face.”
He grinned, Shardplate helm hanging from his saddle so as to not mess up his hair. She waited for him to add a quip to hers, but he didn’t.
That was all right. She liked Adolin as he was. He was kind, noble, and genuine. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t brilliant or… or whatever else Kaladin was. She couldn’t even define it. So there.
Passionate, with an intense, smoldering resolve. A leashed anger that he used, because he had dominated it. And a certain tempting arrogance. Not the haughty pride of a highlord. Instead, the secure, stable sense of determination that whispered that no matter who you were—or what you did—you could not hurt him. Could not change him.
He was. Like the wind and rocks were.
Shallan completely missed what Adolin said next. She blushed. “What was that?”
“I said that Sebarial has a carriage. You might want to travel with him.”
“Because I’m too delicate for riding?” Shallan said. “Did you miss that I walked back through the chasms in the middle of a highstorm?”
“Um, no. But walking and riding are different. I mean, the soreness…”
“Soreness?” Shallan asked. “Why would I be sore? Doesn’t the horse do all of the work?”
Adolin looked at her, eyes widening.
“Um,” she said. “Dumb question?”
“You said you’d ridden before.”
“Ponies,” she said, “on my father’s estates. Around in circles… All right, from that expression, I’m led to believe I’m being an idiot. When I get sore, I’ll go ride with Sebarial.”
“Before you get sore,” Adolin said. “We’ll give it an hour.”
As annoyed as she was at this turn, she couldn’t deny his expertise. Jasnah had once defined a fool as a person who ignored information because it disagreed with desired results.
She determined to not be bothered, and instead enjoy the ride. The army as a whole moved slowly, considering that each piece seemed to be so efficient. Spearmen in blocks, scribes on horseback, scouts roving outward. Dalinar had six of the massive mechanical bridges, but he had also brought all of the former bridgemen and their simpler, man-carried bridges, designed as copies of the ones they’d left in Sadeas’s camp. That was good, since Sebarial only had a couple of bridge crews.
She allowed herself a moment of personal satisfaction at the fact that he’d come on the expedition. As she was thinking on that, she noticed someone running up the line of troops behind her. A short man, with an eye patch, who drew glares from Adolin’s bridgeman guards for the day.
“Gaz?” Shallan said with relief as he hustled up, carrying a package under his arm. Her fears that he’d been knifed in an alley somewhere were unfounded.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said. “It came. You owe the merchant two sapphire broams, Brightness.”
“It?” Shallan asked, accepting the package.
“Yeah. You asked me to find one for you. I storming did.” He seemed proud of himself.
She unwrapped the cloth around the rectangular object, and found inside a book. Words of Radiance, the cover said. The sides were worn, and the pages faded—one patch across the top was even stained from spilled ink sometime in the past.
Rarely had she been as pleased to receive something so damaged. “Gaz!” she said. “You’re wonderful!”
He grinned, shooting Vathah a triumphant smile. The taller man rolled his eyes, muttering something Shallan didn’t hear.
“Thank you,” Shallan said. “Thank you truly, Gaz.”
* * *
As the time passed and one day led into another, Shallan found the distraction of the book extremely welcome. The armies moved about as fast as a herd of sleepy chulls, and the scenery was actually quite boring, though she’d never admit that to Kaladin or Adolin, considering what she’d told them last time she was out here.
The book, though. The book was wonderful. And frustrating.
But what was the “wicked thing of eminence” that led to the Recreance? she thought, writing the quote in her notebook. It was the second day of their travels on the Plains, and she had agreed to ride in the coach Adolin had provided—alone, though it baffled Adolin why she wouldn’t want her lady’s maid with her. Shallan did not want to explain Pattern to the girl.
The book had a chapter for each order of Knights Radiant, with talk of their traditions, their abilities, and their attitudes. The author admitted that a lot of it was hearsay—the book had been written two hundred years after the Recreance, and by then facts, lore, and superstition had mixed freely. Beyond that, it was in an old dialect of Alethi, using the protoscript, a precursor to the true women’s script of modern day. She spent a lot of her time sorting out meanings, occasionally calling over some of Navani’s scholars to provide definitions or interpretation.
Still, she had learned a great deal. For example, each order had different Ideals, or standards, to determine advancement. Some were specific, others left to the interpretation of the spren. Also, some orders were individualistic, while others—like the Windrunners—functioned in teams, with a specific hierarchy.