Dalinar listened to the words with dismay. It was the obvious assumption. So clear that even simpleminded Taravangian saw it. What else to make of Alethkar proposing a union? Alethkar, the great conquerors? Led by the Blackthorn, the man who had united his own kingdom by the sword?
It was the suspicion that had tainted every conversation with the other monarchs. Storms, he thought. Taravangian didn’t come because he believed in my grand alliance. He assumed that if he didn’t, I wouldn’t send my armies to Herdaz or Thaylenah—I’d send them to Jah Keved. To him.
“We’re not going to attack anyone,” Dalinar said. “Our focus is on the Voidbringers, the true enemy. We will win the other kingdoms with diplomacy.”
Taravangian frowned. “But—”
Adrotagia, however, touched him on the arm and quieted him. “Of course, Brightlord,” she said to Dalinar. “We understand.”
She thought he was lying.
And are you?
What would he do if nobody listened? How would he save Roshar without the Oathgates? Without resources?
If our plan to reclaim Kholinar works, he thought, wouldn’t it make sense to take the other gates the same way? Nobody would be able to fight both us and the Voidbringers. We could seize their capitals and force them—for their own good—to join our unified war effort.
He’d been willing to conquer Alethkar for its own good. He’d been willing to seize the kingship in all but name, again for the good of his people.
How far would he go for the good of all Roshar? How far would he go to prepare them for the coming of that enemy? A champion with nine shadows.
I will unite instead of divide.
He found himself standing at that window beside Taravangian, staring out over the mountains, his memories of Evi carrying with them a fresh and dangerous perspective.
I will confess my murders before you. Most painfully, I have killed someone who loved me dearly.
—From Oathbringer, preface
The tower of Urithiru was a skeleton, and these strata beneath Shallan’s fingers were veins that wrapped the bones, dividing and spreading across the entire body. But what did those veins carry? Not blood.
She slid through the corridors on the third level, in the bowels, away from civilization, passing through doorways without doors and rooms without occupants.
Men had locked themselves in with their light, telling themselves that they’d conquered this ancient behemoth. But all they had were outposts in the darkness. Eternal, waiting darkness. These hallways had never seen the sun. Storms that raged through Roshar never touched here. This was a place of eternal stillness, and men could no more conquer it than cremlings could claim to have conquered the boulder they hid beneath.
She defied Dalinar’s orders that all were to travel in pairs. She didn’t worry about that. Her satchel and safepouch were stuffed with new spheres recharged in the highstorm. She felt gluttonous carrying so many, breathing in the Light whenever she wished. She was as safe as a person could be, so long as she had that Light.
She wore Veil’s clothing, but not yet her face. She wasn’t truly exploring, though she did make a mental map. She just wanted to be in this place, sensing it. It could not be comprehended, but perhaps it could be felt.
Jasnah had spent years hunting for this mythical city and the information she’d assumed it would hold. Navani spoke of the ancient technology she was sure this place must contain. So far, she’d been disappointed. She’d cooed over the Oathgates, had been impressed by the system of lifts. That was it. No majestic fabrials from the past, no diagrams explaining lost technology. No books or writings at all. Just dust.
And darkness, Shallan thought, pausing in a circular chamber with corridors splitting out in seven different directions. She had felt the wrongness Mraize spoke of. She’d felt it the moment she’d tried to draw this place. Urithiru was like the impossible geometries of Pattern’s shape. Invisible, yet grating, like a discordant sound.
She picked a direction at random and continued, finding herself in a corridor narrow enough that she could brush both walls with her fingers. The strata had an emerald cast here, an alien color for stone. A hundred shades of wrongness.
She passed several small rooms before entering a much larger chamber. She stepped into it, holding a diamond broam high for light, revealing that she was on a raised portion at the front of a large room with curving walls and rows of stone … benches?
It’s a theater, she thought. And I’ve walked out onto the stage. Yes, she could make out a balcony above. Rooms like this struck her with their humanity. Everything else about this place was so empty and arid. Endless rooms, corridors, and caverns. Floors strewn with only the occasional bit of civilization’s detritus, like rusted hinges or an old boot’s buckle. Decayspren huddled like barnacles on ancient doors.
A theater was more real. More alive, despite the span of the epochs. She stepped into the center and twirled about, letting Veil’s coat flare around her. “I always imagined being up on one of these. When I was a child, becoming a player seemed the grandest job. To get away from home, travel to new places.” To not have to be myself for at least a brief time each day.
Pattern hummed, pushing out from her coat to hover above the stage in three dimensions. “What is it?”
“It’s a stage for concerts or plays.”
“Plays?”
“Oh, you’d like them,” she said. “People in a group each pretend to be someone different, and tell a story together.” She strode down the steps at the side, walking among the benches. “The audience out here watches.”
Pattern hovered in the center of the stage, like a soloist. “Ah…” he said. “A group lie?”
“A wonderful, wonderful lie,” Shallan said, settling onto a bench, Veil’s satchel beside her. “A time when people all imagine together.”
“I wish I could see one,” Pattern said. “I could understand people … mmmm … through the lies they want to be told.”
Shallan closed her eyes, smiling, remembering the last time she’d seen a play at her father’s. A traveling children’s troupe come to entertain her. She’d taken Memories for her collection—but of course, that was now lost at the bottom of the ocean.
“The Girl Who Looked Up,” she whispered.
“What?” Pattern asked.
Shallan opened her eyes and breathed out Stormlight. She hadn’t sketched this particular scene, so she used what she had handy: a drawing she’d done of a young child in the market. Bright and happy, too young to cover her safehand. The girl appeared from the Stormlight and scampered up the steps, then bowed to Pattern.
“There was a girl,” Shallan said. “This was before storms, before memories, and before legends—but there was still a girl. She wore a long scarf to blow in the wind.”
A vibrant red scarf grew around the girl’s neck, twin tails extending far behind her and flapping in a phantom wind. The players had made the scarf hang behind the girl using strings from above. It had seemed so real.
“The girl in the scarf played and danced, as girls do today,” Shallan said, making the child prance around Pattern. “In fact, most things were the same then as they are today. Except for one big difference. The wall.”