POV: shallan
Summary
By candlelight in her chamber in Lasting Integrity, Shallan writes quietly in her notebook. Adolin pulls his chair beside her. Across the room, on a chair, sits her first spren — limp head-pattern fibers maybe straightening a little — with Pattern standing beside her, humming. After much talking with Pattern, they have chosen an Alethi name they think fits the meaning of her individual pattern: Testament. *Testament does seem better, Adolin. Thank you for speaking with her.* He has been trying, though he is no expert. *Recent events considered? I think you're the only expert.*
Maya sits cross-legged on the floor in a kind of warrior's pose. She has not recovered completely, but she has improved — and though she still does not say much, by the simple economics of saying so little, Maya may be one of the best orators who ever existed. It gives them hope that whatever Shallan did to Testament can be repaired. Shallan apologises for the secrets. *You did tell me. Eventually.* He nods toward the knife with the unused gemstone beside her notebook, and the cube Mraize sent on the other side. Bells ring. Time.
With Kelek's help they had got the cube open without harming the spren inside: a glowing ball of light with a strange symbol at its centre, a variety no one in Lasting Integrity recognised until Wit named it a seon. Shallan calls her Ala. *You can come out of the cube. You don't need to live in there anymore.* *I'm supposed to stay. I'm not supposed to talk. To you. To anyone.* The spren resists like an abused child. Another in the list of Mraize's crimes, Radiant says inside. Agreed, Shallan replies — and notes that Radiant, like Veil before her, will eventually be absorbed too, when Shallan's wounds have healed enough. Because she has not one Shardblade but two. Things still don't quite align about her past — her powers had still worked in small ways between killing Testament and finding Pattern. Kelek thinks this is to do with the nature of deadeyes; they didn't exist before the Recreance. And he thinks Mraize hunts him for that same reason, to do with the fall of the singers and a specific imprisoned spren.
*Contact Mraize please, spren. It is time.* The globe shifts into Mraize's face. *Little knife. I trust the deed has been done?* *I did it. It hurt so much. But she is gone.* He hesitates. *She, little knife?* *Veil and I are one now, Mraize.* She rests her hand on the notebook, which holds the fascinating things Kelek has told her about other worlds — places Kelek desperately wants to see. He cannot commit to ideas or plans like other Heralds, but to one thing he has: he wants off Roshar before Odium owns the world and the Heralds are tortured again.
*Shallan, we do not move against other Ghostbloods.* *I'm not one of the Ghostbloods. None of us ever were, not fully. And now we are stepping away.* *Don't do this. Think of the cost.* *My brothers? You must know by now they're no longer in the tower, Mraize. Pattern and Wit got them out before the occupation. Thank you for this seon, by the way. Wit says unbound ones are difficult to come by — handy for communication across realms.* *You will never have your answers, Shallan.* *I have what I need, thank you very much.* She has been talking with Kelek the Herald and thinks the reason they hunt him is an Unmade — Ba-Ado-Mishram, the one who Connected to the singers long ago, and whose imprisonment broke the singers' minds and made them parshmen. What does Mraize want with a thing that can bind the minds of an entire people? Silence.
*I'll be returning to the tower soon, along with those honorspren who've decided in light of recent revelations to bond with humans. When I do, I expect you and yours gone. Either way I'm going to find that gemstone before you do. And if you get in my way, well, it will be a fun hunt.* *This will not end well for you, Shallan. You make an enemy of the most powerful organization in all the cosmere.* *I think we can handle you.* *Perhaps. Can you handle my master? Can you handle her master?* *Thaidakar?* *Ah, so you've heard of him.* *The Lord of Scars, Wit calls him.* She passes on the message: *Tell his avatar we're done with his meddling. His influence over my people is finished. Also* — and she sighs because Wit asked nicely — *Wit says to tell him: deal with your own stupid planet, you idiot. Don't make me come over there and slap you around again.* *So it must be. Know that in doing this, you have moved against the Ghostbloods in the most offensive of ways. We are now at war, Shallan.* *You've always been at war. I've finally picked a side. Goodbye, Mraize. End contact.* The seon molds back into a featureless globe. Whoever they are, Adolin says, we can handle them. He has good reason for the optimism: with the honorspren leaders in disgrace and Lasting Integrity opened to outsiders, he has accomplished his mission. He was right all along — about the honorspren, about her. She flips to the next page — a diagram from Kelek's descriptions, stars and the many worlds among them — and decides she has kept her head down too long. Time to soar.
On the eastern flats beyond the Shattered Plains the listeners raise bows when Venli walks up alone with her hands up. She does not blame them; they assume she has come to finish the job she started. Thude eventually emerges from behind their piled-rock fortification, sees her glow of Stormlight, and approaches. Jaxlim is alive but her mind is gone, he says — none of the others who knew the songs escaped. Venli says she might have a way to heal her. Reachers — lightspren — are seeking people who exemplify their Ideal: freedom. The listeners are the perfect representation. A Radiant bond requires volition; the bond's start, though, does not. She asks to see her mother.
Jaxlim sits by a tent of woven reeds and does not know her. Venli kneels and feels like a child in the good way. The little comet of a spren circles, then slips into Jaxlim seeking her gemheart. Nothing changes. So Venli takes out a Stormlight sphere her mother does not drink in, and sings the Song of Mornings — the first song she ever learned, her mother's favorite. The gathered listeners hum to her rhythm. *I will restore them to you, if you'll have me. I understand if you won't.* Thude hums Skepticism, then, gently, says perhaps Venli will find things have changed for them too. A shadow falls across her — a chasmfiend, here, in the camp, unalarmed. Thude hums Confidence. *That is how you got out of the chasms in the storm?* Then Jaxlim's eyes focus. *Venli? Is that you?* And a distant femalen voice in Venli's mind says her Words are accepted.