Chapter Text
Shallan shoved the rotating wall into place, then pulled her Blade free.
The ten Stormlight lamps faded like closing eyes, leaving just the flickering oil lamp one of the scholars had brought.
Shallan slowly exhaled. She turned around– and froze.
“Almighty above,” Adolin whispered.
There was an extra person in the room with them.
He lay crumpled in the center of the mosaic like he had collapsed there, golden-iridescent Stormlight rising from his form like smoke. It was thick and hard to see through, but quickly thinning.
“Um, Brightness?” Inadara started hesitantly.
“Yes, Inadara?” Shallan asked, her voice remarkably steady.
“Who is that?”
“I don’t know, Inadara.”
Shallan cautiously approached, kneeling next to the stranger. She reached out, gently rolling him onto his back. The strange Light tingled as it touched her, and she couldn’t draw it into herself like she could with normal Stormlight.
The mist was almost gone, only a heat haze in the air now, and she could see the man’s features clearly. He looked like… well, he looked like no one she’d ever seen before. He might have been able to pass for Alethi, with similar dark tan skin, except he had a more rounded face and dark brown hair. Thaylen, almost, but without the long eyebrows. He wore simple traveling clothes and boots, with a belt that held vials of… she couldn’t tell what was in them. A couple bluish-white metal studs pierced his ears. He was soaked, clothes and hair plastered to his body, and shivering with cold.
The man didn’t stir as she touched him, breathing shallow, though his pulse was fast when she checked it. Shallan hesitated, then stood up. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, nodding to the crem-blocked opening in the structure. “We can inform Dalinar of what happened and have him deal with this.”
Adolin frowned, but nodded, summoning his Shardblade and moving toward the doorway.