POV: shallan
Summary
Radiant is the first to wake under the sack — quietly, so her captor does not know — and runs the assessment. She is being carried over someone's shoulder; the Lightweaving of *Chanasha*'s face has held while she slept. She is not bound. Good. The kidnap their team has worked for a month to engineer is on. They suspect the cult belongs to Ialai Sadeas, plotting to seize the Oathgate at the centre of the Shattered Plains now that Amaram is dead; they have no proof, Dalinar has refused to move without proof, and Adolin is somewhere in Pattern's line of sight, ready to extract her if she gives the signal.
She is set down on wet rock and water is poured on her head when she does not stir fast enough. Veil takes the front, gasps awake, and sees where she is: in the chasms, under a band of robed cultists holding glowing diamond broams. *Kelek's breath* — they got her down here without anyone seeing. Each robe is sewn with the Double Eye of the Almighty; Shallan surfaces long enough to wonder, dryly, what they told the seamstress. The man at the front addresses *Chanasha Hasareh* by the saintly legacy of Chanaranach'Elin and asks if she truly wishes the Heralds to return. The woman at his side, who Veil is fairly certain is Ulina of Ialai's inner circle, names them: the Sons of Honor, whose vocation is to usher in the return of the Heralds, the storms, and the Almighty.
Veil plays it cautious and confused, then probes. They claim to be the architects of the Radiants' return, of the Everstorm, of the awakening of the parshmen — *the grand architects of the future of Roshar*. Pattern would have loved the lie; Veil finds it pathetic. Mraize had already explained the truth: Gavilar used these people and their devotion and their money for his own ends, and what was once a real movement is now a loose end. Even Radiant agrees the task Dalinar — and, secretly, Mraize — has given them is worth doing.
The initiation is gaudy. A fabrial of two garnets and wire loops — one Shallan herself sold them under another face, after staging an exposure of one of her own Lightweavers to make them believe in it — is held up and pronounces her *bears no illusions*. The lit price doubled the credibility. Veil swears their oaths: to restore the Heralds and the Almighty; to serve the Sons; to honour *Queen Ialai*; and that she does not serve the *false spren* who bow before Dalinar Kholin. The woman is smug: if she had been a Radiant she could not have sworn the last falsely. Veil thinks at her, fondly, *we're not all Bondsmiths or their ilk* — and recalls that the Lightweavers are an order founded on the principle that all people lie, especially to themselves.
She is initiated, and refused. The lead cultists will not take her to Ialai today — she has not yet earned the privilege. As they pull the sack to put back over her head, Veil tries one more cast — *I have connections to Dalinar's inner circle, I can feed you his plans* — and the man laughs the wrong laugh: *We already know. We have a source far closer to him than you.*
Shallan surfaces in alarm. An informant in Dalinar's court is a knife at every coalition table. She cannot afford to spend another month worming her way up. *Wait,* she says aloud, standing up, pushing aside the tall man's hands as he tries to seat the sack — *I'm not who you think I am.*