POV: adolin
Summary
Adolin, aboard Captain Ico's Reacher copper-plate ship, has borrowed the captain's cabin to assemble disguises before the party arrives at Celebrant. The biggest jacket Ico owns is still too short on him; he cuts the trousers below the knee and tucks them into boots, rolls the sleeves to match an old Thaylen cut, and improvises a burgundy waistcoat by lopping the collar and sleeves off a smaller jacket and lacing the back. When Ico looks in, he tells Adolin he could pass for an honorspren going to a Feast of Light.
Ico reads kingship in him and asks why he left, then with a spren's matter-of-fact rudeness explains that no human can be trusted with oaths — it is simply their nature. Adolin does not take offence, but the conversation lands in a sore place: his father will almost certainly call off the abdication now that Elhokar is dead, and Adolin has spent his whole life hoping the throne would never reach him. He has always told himself his hesitance is about losing time for duels and pleasure; he can feel, for the first time, that the inconsistency goes deeper than that. The point is moot anyway. Alethkar has fallen.
He joins the others at the starboard wale, where Shallan, Kaladin, and Azure are wearing whatever the Reachers would sell them for dun spheres. Kaladin's borrowed coat will not button across his chest; Azure looks ordinary without breastplate and cloak; Shallan complains about trousers and asks Adolin to sew her a dress. Overhead the clouds suddenly ripple with mother-of-pearl light — a highstorm in the Physical Realm, their second since arrival — and the Reacher crew straighten and move with new vigour, apparently feeding off it. Shallan grabs her sketchbook to go interrogate sailors; Kaladin drifts forward to join Syl at the prow, where he keeps looking south as if willing the ship faster.
Left at the rail with Azure, Adolin fields a few quiet questions about how a royal learned to tailor. Azure mentions that she has known more royalty than people might assume, including a woman who walked away from a throne because someone else was better suited to sit on it. The idea is foreign to him — duty is what is demanded, not what is enjoyed — and he flushes and blames the lecture on his father and uncle. Azure rests her hand on her Shardblade's pommel and admits she keeps walking away from duties; the one thing she does not regret is letting someone else rule. She excuses herself for a drink, leaving Adolin turning the thought over.
They pass through a sea of candle-flames hovering above the bead ocean — a village on the human side, the lights crowded together against the storm. Shallan returns and tucks under his arm, fishing for a compliment about her unwashed hair and worker's clothes; Adolin tells her she could outshine the iridescent clouds. The shimmer at last fades, land rises on the horizon, and Celebrant comes into view, ships entering and leaving with at least two mandras each.
Ico calls Adolin down to the brig — a low cell far aft — to collect his deadeye. The spren of his Shardblade sits silent on a bench, scratched-out eyes empty. Adolin wishes she had not been locked away; Ico explains that deadeyes cannot be on deck because they do not watch where they walk and fall overboard. Movement deeper in the brig catches Adolin's eye. Ico answers shortly: *my father.* He keeps the older deadeye locked up so he will not wander off looking for the human carrying his corpse — a Radiant spren, then, but it is rude to ask about such ones. Adolin presses, rudeness does not imply untruth, and Ico turns the question on him: *what is she to you?* — *a friend.* — *a tool. You use her corpse on the other side. Don't pretend.*
On deck the ship is gliding to its berth on a stone pier. The Reacher crew unfold a section of hull into steps; handlers begin unhitching the mandras with long hooks, and the freed ship settles onto braces. Ico gives Adolin a stiffly returned handshake — *a deal fulfilled, and a bond kept.* He refuses to carry them on to Cultivation's Perpendicularity (too many ships vanishing) or to Thaylen City (he unloads here and turns east, away from trouble), and advises them to stay in Shadesmar: the Physical Realm is unwelcoming these days. He points out the dock registrar (blue paint) for the list of ships taking passengers and the moneychanger next door for trading Stormlight into notes of exchange, mentions a daughter who once worked there before running off after stupid dreams, and bids them farewell.
Walking down the gangway, Adolin notices that Syl is still wearing the Alethi-tan, black-haired illusion Shallan painted on her — apparently being an honorspren in this port is a problem. They split: Adolin takes Kaladin and Syl to look for supplies and to keep a spren with them for cultural translation; Shallan takes Pattern and Azure to inquire after passage. First stop, the moneychanger.