The bulk of the Parshendi continued their chanting. A smaller group broke off, perhaps two thousand in number, and moved to intercept Adolin. He growled, leaning low, Shardblade appearing in his hand. If they—

A flash of light.

The world lurched, and Adolin found himself skidding on the ground, his Shardplate grinding against stones. The armor absorbed the blow of the fall, but could do nothing for Adolin’s own shock. The world spun, and a spray of water spurted in through the slits in his helm, washing over his face.

As he came to rest, he heaved himself backward, up to his feet. He stumbled, clanking, thrashing about in case any Parshendi had gotten close. He blinked away water inside his helm, then oriented himself on a change in the landscape in front of him. White amid the brown and grey. What was that . . .

He finally blinked his eyes clear enough to get a good look. The whiteness was a horse, fallen to the ground.

Adolin screamed something raw, a sound that echoed in his helm. He ignored the shouts of soldiers, the sound of rain, the sudden and unnatural crack behind him. He ran to the body on the ground. Sureblood.

“No, no, no,” Adolin said, skidding to his knees beside the horse. The animal bore a strange, branching burn all down the side of his white coat. Wide, jagged. Sureblood’s dark eyes, open to the rain, did not blink.

Adolin raised his hands, suddenly hesitant to touch the animal.

A youth on an unfamiliar field.

Sureblood wasn’t moving.

More nervous that day than during the duel that won his Blade.

Shouts. Another crack in the air, sharp, immediate.

They pick their rider, son. We fixate on Shards, but any man—courageous or coward—can bond a Blade. Not so here, on this ground. Only the worthy win here . . .

Move.

Grieve later.

Move!

Adolin roared, leaping to his feet and charging past the two bridgemen who nervously stood guard over him with spears. He started the process of summoning his Blade and ran toward the fighting up ahead. Only moments had passed, but already the Alethi lines were collapsing. Some infantry advanced in clusters while others had hunkered down, stunned and confused.

Another flash, accompanied by a cracking of the air. Lightning. Red lightning. It appeared in flashes from groups of Parshendi, then was gone in the blink of an eye. It left a bright afterimage—glowing, forked—that briefly obscured Adolin’s sight.

Ahead of him, men dropped, fried in their armor. Adolin shouted as he charged, bellowing for the men to hold their lines.

More cracks sounded, but the strikes didn’t seem well aimed. They’d sometimes flash backward or would follow strange paths, rarely going straight toward the Alethi. As he ran, he saw a blast come from a pair of Parshendi, but it arced immediately down into the ground.

The Parshendi stared downward, befuddled. It was as if the lightning worked . . . well, like lightning from the sky, not following any sort of predictable path.

“Charge them, you cremlings!” Adolin shouted, running through the middle of the soldiers. “Back into your lines! It’s just like advancing on archers! Keep your heads. Tighten up. If we break, we’re dead!”

He wasn’t certain how much of that they heard, but the image of him yelling, crashing into the line of Parshendi, did something. Shouts rose from officers, lines re-formed.

Lightning flashed right at Adolin.

The sound was incredible, and the light. He stood in place, blinded. When it faded, he found himself completely unharmed. He looked down at the armor, which was vibrating softly—a hum that rattled his skin in a strangely comforting way. Nearby, another crack of lightning left a small group of Parshendi, but it didn’t blind him. His helm—which as always was partially translucent from the inside—darkened in a jagged streak, perfectly overlaying the lightning.

Adolin grinned with clenched teeth, feeling a savage satisfaction as he pushed into the Parshendi and swung his Shardblade through their necks. By the old stories, the suit he wore had been created to fight these very monsters.

Though these Parshendi soldiers were sleeker and more ferocious-looking than the ones he’d previously fought, their eyes burned just as easily. Then they dropped dead and something wiggled out of their chests—small red spren, like tiny lightning, that zipped into the air and vanished.

“They can be killed!” one of the soldiers yelled nearby. “They can die!”

Others raised the call, passing it down the lines. Obvious though the revelation seemed, it bolstered his troops, and they surged forward.

They can die.

* * *

Shallan drew. Frantic.

A map in ink. Each line precise. The large sheet, crafted at her order, covered a wide board on the floor. It was the largest drawing she’d ever done; she’d filled it in, section by section, as they traveled.

She listened with half an ear to the other scholars in the tent. They were a distraction, but an important one.

Another line, rippled on the sides, forming a thin plateau. It was a copy of the one she’d drawn in seven other places on the map. The Plains were a fourfold radial pattern mirrored down the center of each quadrant, and so anything she drew in one quadrant she could repeat in the others, mirrored as appropriate. The eastern side was worn down, yes, so her map wouldn’t be accurate in that area—but for cohesion, she needed to finish those parts. So she could see the whole pattern.

“Scout reporting in,” a messenger woman said, bursting into the tent, letting in a gust of the wet wind. This unexpected wind . . . it almost felt like the wind before a highstorm.

“What is the report?” Inadara asked. The severe woman was supposed to be a great scholar. She reminded Shallan of her father’s ardents. In the corner of the room, Prince Renarin stood in his Shardplate, arms folded. He had orders to protect them all, should the Parshendi try to break onto the command plateau.

“The large center plateau is just as the parshman told us,” the scout said, breathless. “It’s only one plateau over, to the east.” Lyn was a solid-looking woman with long black hair and keen eyes. “It’s obviously inhabited, though there doesn’t seem to be anyone there right now.”

“And the plateaus surrounding it?” Inadara asked.

“Shim and Felt are scouting those,” Lyn said. “Felt should be back soon. I can do a rough drawing of what I saw of the center plateau for you.”

“Do it,” Inadara said. “We need to find that Oathgate.”

Shallan wiped a stray drop of water—fallen from Lyn’s coat—off her map, then continued drawing. The army’s path from the warcamps inward had allowed her to extrapolate and draw eight chains of plateaus, two each—mirrored—starting from the four “sides” of the Plains and working inward.

She had almost completed the last of the eight arms reaching toward the center. This close, earlier scout reports—and what Shallan had seen herself—allowed her to fill in everything around the center. Rlain’s explanations had helped, but he hadn’t been able to draw out the center plateaus for her. He’d never paid attention to their shapes, and Shallan needed precision.

Fortunately, earlier reports had almost been enough. She didn’t need much more. She was almost done.

“What do you think?” Lyn asked.

“Show it to Brightness Shallan.” Inadara sounded displeased, which seemed her normal state.

Shallan glanced over Lyn’s hastily sketched map, then nodded, turning back to her drawing. It would be better if she could see the center plateau herself, but the corner this woman had drawn gave Shallan an idea.

“Not going to say anything?” Inadara asked.

“Not done yet,” Shallan said, dipping her pen in the ink.

“We have been given an order by the highprince himself to find the Oathgate.”

“I will.”

Something crashed outside, like distant lightning.

“Mmm . . .” Pattern said. “Bad. Very bad.”

Inadara looked at Pattern, who dimpled the floor near Shallan. “I do not like this thing. Spren should not speak. It may be of them, a Voidbringer.”

“I am not a Voidspren,” Pattern said.

“Brightness Shallan—”

“He’s not a Voidspren,” Shallan said absently.

“We should study it,” Inadara said. “How long did you say it has been following you?”

A heavy footstep sounded on the floor, Renarin stepping forward. Shallan would have preferred to keep Pattern secret, but when the winds had started picking up, he’d started buzzing loudly. There was no avoiding it now that he’d drawn the scholars’ attention. Renarin leaned down. He seemed fascinated by Pattern.

He wasn’t the only one. “It is likely involved,” Inadara said. “You should not dismiss one of my theories so quickly. I still think it might be related to the Voidbringers.”

“Know you nothing of Patterns, old human?” Pattern said, huffing. When had he picked up how to huff? “Voidbringers have no pattern. Besides, I have read of them in your lore. They speak of spindly arms like bone, and horrific faces. I should think, if you wish to find one, the mirror might be a location where you can begin your search.”

Inadara recoiled. Then she stomped away, moving to chat with Brightness Velat and the ardent Isasik about their interpretation of Shallan’s map.

Shallan smiled as she drew. “That was clever.”

“I am trying to learn,” Pattern replied. “Insults in particular will be of great use to my people, as they are truths and lies combined in a quite interesting manner.”

The pops continued outside. “What is that?” she asked softly, finishing another plateau.

“Stormspren,” Pattern said. “They are a variety of Voidspren. It is not good. I feel something very dangerous brewing. Draw more quickly.”

“The Oathgate must be in that center plateau somewhere,” Inadara said to her group of scholars.

“We will never search the entire thing in time,” said one of the ardents, a man who seemed to be constantly removing his spectacles and wiping them down. He put them back on. “That plateau is by far the largest we’ve found on the Plains.”

It was a problem. How to find the Oathgate? It could be anywhere. No, Shallan thought, drawing with precise motions, the old maps placed what Jasnah thought was the Oathgate southwest of the city center. Unfortunately, she still didn’t have a scale for reference. The city was too ancient, and all the maps were copies of copies of copies or re-creations from descriptions. She was certain by now that Stormseat hadn’t made up the entire Shattered Plains—the city hadn’t been nearly so huge. Structures like the warcamps had been outbuildings, or satellite cities.

But that was just a guess. She needed something concrete. Some sign.

The tent flaps opened again. It had grown cold outside. Was the rain harder than it had been?

“Damnation!” the newcomer swore, a thin man in a scout’s uniform. “Have you seen what is happening out there? Why are we split across the plateaus? Wasn’t the plan to fight a defensive battle?”