POV: adolin
Summary
Adolin, walking toward the tower lifts after his shower morning with Shallan and a side trip to check on Gallant, spots Colot of the Cobalt Guard standing in the commoner line. Dalinar has, predictably, slipped his guard again — not on purpose, Colot insists; the man simply gets distracted. Colot asks Adolin not to bring it up with him yet again; bodyguarding Dalinar these days is more an inconvenience for both parties than a real protection. Adolin ignores the request and hauls him out of the line, just in time to see the Azish emperor being loaded into a lift with the full retinue — viziers, functionaries, servants of the functionaries, Noura near the centre — and runs to catch it. Yanagawn himself raises a hand to wait, and the two of them step aboard.
The lift moves like nothing in the tower used to: fast enough that Adolin feels the wind of it. The ride to the top will only take a few minutes now. Yanagawn asks for a private word — irregular, since a prime is not supposed to address those beneath him, but their relationship has shifted in the year since the Battle of Thaylen Field. He has Adolin's report on the Fused army marching on his city — fifteen or twenty thousand, against the fraction of Azimir's defenders left in the capital — and he is plainly afraid. He asks how Adolin bears the fear of failing his people with a sword in hand.
Adolin answers honestly. *Storming terrified.* Kholinar fell when he was sent to save it; not a day passes when he does not feel the spike of the stretched muscle that will never quite finish healing — activating the Oathgate, leaving wounded men behind, his cousin Elhokar dead on the stones. Training with the sword helps clear his mind. Yanagawn confesses that his station's distance from tactical decisions feels at times a blessing and at others cowardice; Adolin tells him knowing one's limits is not cowardice. Yanagawn then gently brings up his commoner past — *a thief, and not a very good one* — and Noura steps in to redirect, reminding him gently that the path his god Yaezir put him on does not change what he is now. Adolin decides she at least is thoughtful, and thinks privately that the young emperor needs to start training with a sword. Not his place to say so. The lift reaches the top.
Down on the atrium ground floor, Radiant leans against the wall wearing the Lightwoven face of a crem scraper — long droopy waxen features, hands deep in pockets. She has just sent Isom up to take the next lift after Adolin, because he gave her tail a small scare by detouring to check on his horse instead of going straight to the meeting. Of course he did. Stargyle is already up in the meeting room officially representing the Unseen Court. Gaz is beside her wearing the face of a young woman who sells rockbud flowers in the market — one of his shorter-stature disguises, and one of his better sketches.
Gaz reports nothing: no Ghostbloods following her people today, no strike at Gallant in the stables. Radiant thinks that fits — Mraize is too subtle for petty stings at people Shallan loves when those would only draw Dalinar's full attention down on the Ghostbloods. She bleeds back into Shallan, slouches further, chews her lip to sell the disguise, and works through the unsettling silence with him: the Ghostbloods will inevitably watch Dalinar and Navani for any spillover from today, and one of those tails will give them a chain to follow.
The talk drifts, and she asks after his gambling. *Nothing this week* — but only because he has stayed away entirely. *Budgets don't work for me.* He explains it, plainly: once he starts, he stops caring; that lack of caring is what stranded him in the bridge crews under petty lighteyes, and what made him a deserter after. She thinks of her brother Jushu, who has the same trouble. Gaz tells her the thing that actually keeps him out of the dens these days is Stargyle and Red having gone round threatening every house in the tower to refuse his custom. *The power of being loved*, Shallan proposes; *the power of having storming maniacs as friends*, he refines.
His belt spanreed starts blinking with Shob's code — a Ghostblood spotted. Gaz runs the punchline through *toe* and *toenail* with her one more time, and they go.