He got nothing but more frosty accusations from the inkspren, so he returned to the street—and Maya let him. Had she somehow known this deadeye was strange? Was that why she’d wanted him to go in and talk to the shopkeeper?
He moved to join his men, but stopped as he saw Godeke and his spren hastening up the street. The former ardent had a graceful way about him as he arrived and fluidly bowed. “Brightlord, I think you’ll want to see this.”
“What? It’s not another deadeye spren, is it?”
“No,” Godeke said. “It’s the humans.”
But this does not get to the core of your letter. I have encouraged those who would speak to me to heed your warnings, but all seem content to ignore Odium for the time being. In their opinion, he is no threat as long as he remains confined in the Rosharan system.
Light shimmered in the strange cube, seeping through at the corners as Mraize spoke. Veil watched, and suddenly felt disjointed—trapped between two moments.
This experience … she’d done this before. She’d been here, kneeling on the ground, holding a cube that glowed from the corners. Exactly like this.
She reached to the top of the cube, feeling the smooth metal, and expected it to be dimpled. She cocked her head, inspecting her fingers as she lifted them up and rubbed them against her thumb. This was wrong.… She glanced over her shoulder, and saw the enclosure beneath the tarp.
She was on a mission into Shadesmar. Why should she expect to see gardens behind her? Her father’s gardens?
Veil faded into Shallan. These memories … these were something lost to her. From the years leading up to her … her mother’s death. That twisted, knotted, overgrown time in her brain, hidden behind carefully cultivated flower beds. When she sorted through her memories, it didn’t feel like anything was missing. Yet she knew from other clues that there were holes.
Remember, Veil thought. Remember.
She’d trained with Pattern as a child. She’d spoken oaths. She’d summoned a Shardblade and struck down her own mother, frantic to survive. And—she looked back at the cube—she’d held one of these?
She gripped the cube tightly, becoming hyperfocused on Mraize’s voice. She couldn’t think about the past. She couldn’t. Unfortunately, the sounds coming out of the cube seemed garbled to her. Her mind fixated on each syllable alone, and she couldn’t understand the Alethi as a language—it was instead a jumble of sounds.
She shook herself, and the barge seemed to lurch beneath her. She gasped, forcing Veil to take over, and Mraize’s words started to make sense.
“… have been careful,” Mraize was saying, “not to attract attention in this communication?”
“I…” Veil said. “Of course I did this in secret. You know me better than that.” What had he been saying before? She’d missed it entirely.
“It is always good,” he said, “to reinforce the behavior you want, little knife. In people as in axehounds. Your report?”
“We have landed,” she said, “and the others went out to explore a small dockside town here on the coast. We have several weeks’ further travel via caravan, hopefully as uneventful as these, before reaching the fortress.”
“Have you learned anything of interest about your fellow Radiants?”
“Nothing I’d report to you, Mraize,” Veil said. “Mostly I wanted to make sure this cube of yours worked.” She considered. “What happens again if I pry the thing open?”
“You will immediately destroy the spren that lives inside,” Mraize said.
“You can’t kill spren.”
“I didn’t say kill.”
She held up the cube. Light escaped from the corners—had the cube opened a little? “Perhaps I do have a tidbit for you,” she said. “Something I might be willing to trade for information about this cube.”
“That is not your mission, nor our arrangement, little knife,” Mraize said—sounding amused. “The hound does not withhold affection to get her feast. She performs first, and then receives her reward.”
“You tell me to be the hunter, not the prey,” Veil said. “Yet snap at me when I show initiative?”
“Initiative is wonderful, and your possession of it is commendable. However, our organization survives based on principles of hierarchy. A group of hunters working together could turn upon one another far too easily.
“And so, I respect my babsk, and you respect me. We do not strike against our own, and we do not negotiate upward. To do otherwise is to invite anarchy. So continue to hunt, but do not think to hold hostage your results. Now, is there anything else to report on the mission that might be relevant?”
He didn’t press her further on information about the other Radiants; so in essence, he conceded that point. She hadn’t been assigned to report on them, and he knew he had no right to press for that information.
Note this fact, Veil thought. There is wiggle room in this arrangement, despite what he implies.
“There have been some odd spren watching us,” Veil noted. “I only catch glimpses of them, but they seem the wrong color. As if they’d been corrupted.”
“Curious,” Mraize said. “Sja-anat extends her influence. I am still waiting for the spren she promised would bond me.”
“She promised to send a spren,” Veil said. “Not that the spren would choose you. Do not blame Shallan if you fail to secure what you want.”
“And yet, Sja-anat spies on you during this trip. These spren you see? What can you tell me about them?”
“They’re all the same variety, and they stay far away or obscured somehow. None of the others on our trip have seen them, though I’ve warned my team to watch for them.”
“Sja-anat is important, little hunter,” Mraize said. “We must bind her to us. A spren of Odium willing to betray him? An ancient creature with equally ancient knowledge? I give you this secondary mission. Watch for these spren closely, and make contact if you can.”
“I will,” Veil said. “Is there news of the tower or of Dalinar’s invasion?”
“Oh, things here are subject to their usual flares of activity and surprise,” Mraize said. “Nothing unexpected for those who have been paying attention. I will let you know if anything here requires your involvement.”
Veil nodded, feeling distracted as the sensation of holding the cube overcame her once more. She forced Shallan to take control again, to see the shadows of reflections of memories. She breathed in and out, trying to force herself to remain strong. To not run.
Should she ask Mraize whether he knew anything of her past, and whether she’d ever communicated this way before? He’d be unlikely to answer, but that wasn’t why she hesitated.
I don’t want to know, she thought. Instead she said, “I will contact you once we have traveled a distance on the caravan.”
“Very well,” Mraize said. “Again, I must emphasize: Watch for any signs of these corrupted gloryspren. I worry that Sja-anat is playing us both, and I do not like the feeling.”
Shallan almost dropped the cube in surprise. She intentionally hadn’t mentioned the specific variety of spren. Yet he called them gloryspren.