“Strike at a Herald,” she said. “It sounds wrong, Mraize. Very wrong.”
“You are weak,” he said. “You know it.”
She bowed her head.
“But part of you is not,” he continued. “A part that can be that strong. Let that side of you do what needs to be done. Save your husband, your kingdom, and your world all at once. Become that hunter, Shallan.
“Become the knife.”
* * *
The honorspren surrounding the High Judge made room for Adolin as he approached, Blended following behind. He didn’t miss the glares that many of them gave her. No, there was no love lost between the two varieties of spren.
He should probably feel reverence for the High Judge. This was Kelek, though the spren called him Kalak for some reason. Either way, he was one of the Heralds—so Blended had explained. Many people back home thought of him as the Stormfather, and though that had never been true, he was one of the most ancient beings in all of creation. A god to many. An immortal soldier for justice and Honor.
He was also short, with thinning hair. He felt like the type of man you’d find administering some minor city in the backwater of Alethkar. And if he was anything like Ash or Taln, the two Heralds who now resided at Urithiru …
Well, his acquaintance with those two caused Adolin to lower his expectations in this particular case.
Kelek spoke with several honorspren leaders as they strolled up the lower portion of the western plane, entering a stone pathway made up of a multitude of colored cobblestones vaguely in the pattern of a gust of wind. The group paused as they saw Adolin ahead.
He removed his hand from his sword out of respect, then bowed to the Herald.
“Hmm? A human?” Kelek said. “Why is he here? He looks dangerous, Sekeir.”
“He is,” said the honorspren beside Kelek. Sekeir was a leader of the fortress, and appeared as an ancient honorspren with a long blue-white beard. “This is Adolin Kholin, son of Dalinar Kholin.”
“The Bondsmith?” Kelek said, and shied away from Adolin. “Good heavens! Why have you let him in here?”
“I have come, great one,” Adolin said, “to petition the honorspren for their aid in our current battle.”
“Your current battle? Against Odium?” Kelek laughed. “Boy, you’re doomed. You realize that, right? Tanavast is dead. Like, completely dead. The Oathpact is broken somehow. The only thing left is to try to get off the ship before it sinks.”
“Holy Lord,” Sekeir said, “we let this one in because he offered to stand trial in the stead of the humans, for the pain they have caused our people.”
“You’re going to try him for the Recreance?” Kelek asked, looking around uncertainly at the others near him. “Isn’t that a bit extreme?”
“He offered, Holy Lord.”
“Not a smart one, is he?” Kelek looked to Adolin, who hesitantly pulled up from his bow. “Huh. You’ve gotten yourself in deep, boy. They take this kind of thing very seriously around here.”
“I hope to show them, great one, that we are not their enemies. That the best course forward is for them to join us in our fight. It is, one might say, the honorable choice.”
“Honor is dead,” Kelek snapped. “Aren’t you paying attention? This world belongs to Odium now. He has his own storm, for heaven’s sake.”
Blended nudged Adolin. Right. He was so distracted by Kelek that he’d forgotten the purpose of meeting with him.
“Great one,” Adolin said, “I’ve decided to petition for a trial by witness. Would you be willing to grant me this?”
“Trial by witness?” Kelek said. “Well, that would make this mess end faster. What do you think, Sekeir?”
“I don’t think this would be a wise—”
“Hold on; I don’t care what you think,” Kelek said. “Here I am, years after joining you, and you still don’t have a way for me to get off this cursed world. Fine, boy, trial by witness it is. We can start it … um, the day after tomorrow? Is that acceptable for everyone?”
No one objected.
“Great,” Kelek said. “Day after tomorrow. Okay then. Um … let’s have it at the forum, shall we? I guess everyone will want to watch, and that has the most seats.”
“Object to this,” Blended whispered to Adolin. “Do not let it be. You don’t want to have to persuade the audience as well as the judge.”
“Great one,” Adolin said, “I had hoped this to be an intimate, personal discussion of—”
“Tough,” Kelek said. “You should have thought of that before coming in here to create a storm. Everyone knows how this trial will end, so we might as well make a good time of it for them.”
Adolin felt a sinking sensation as Kelek led the group of honorspren around him. Though few lighteyed judges were ever truly impartial, there was an expectation that they’d try to act with honor before the eyes of the Almighty. But this Herald basically told him the trial would be a sham. The man had made his judgment before hearing any arguments.
How on Roshar was that ever considered a deity? Adolin thought, in a daze. The Heralds had fallen so far.
Either that, or … perhaps these ten people had always been only that. People. After all, crowning a man a king or highprince didn’t necessarily make him anything grander than he’d been. Adolin knew that firsthand.
“That could have gone better,” Blended said, “but at least a trial by witness is. Come. I have one day, it seems, to prepare you to be thrown into the angerspren’s den.…”
I remember so few of those centuries. I am a blur. A smear on the page. A gaunt stretch of ink, made all the more insubstantial with each passing day.
Venli knelt on the floor of a secluded hallway on the fifteenth floor of Urithiru. The stones whispered to her that the place had once been called Ur. The word meant “original” in the Dawnchant. An ancient place, with ancient stones.
There was a spren that lived here. Not dead, as Raboniel had once proclaimed. This spren was the veins of the tower, its inner metal and crystal running through walls, ceilings, floors.
The stones had not been created by that spren, though a grand project had reshaped them. Reshaped Ur, the original mountain that had been here before. The stones remembered being that mountain. They remembered so many things, which they expressed to Venli. Not with words. Rather as impressions, like those a hand left in crem before it dried.
Or the impression Venli’s hands left in the floor as they sank into the eager stone. Remember, the stones whispered. Remember what you have forgotten.
She remembered sitting at her mother’s feet as a child, listening to the songs. The music had flowed like water, etching patterns in her brain—memories—like the passage of time etched canals in stone.
Listeners were not like humans, who grew slow as trees. Listeners grew like vines, quick and eager. By age three, she’d been singing with her mother. By age ten, she’d been considered an adult. Venli remembered those years—looking up to Eshonai, who seemed so big, although just a year older than Venli. She had vague memories of holding her father’s finger as he sang with her mother.