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Kaladin can admit that he’s been a little bit… all over the place, since Thaylen City.
He’s just got a lot on his mind. Leshwi. Warlight. The continued threat of anti-stormlight, which he’s thinking about a lot more since nearly dying from it himself. The slow headway that Rlain, Renarin, and Venli have been making recently with the Singers, the fact that it’s starting to look like it might actually be possible to bring people to their side and turn them against Odium, finally neutralize the corrosive powers working against them all for good. Lasting peace. He can almost, almost see it.
Changing minds among the Fused is another matter, but he’s working on it. He just needs to understand warlight better. He can’t experiment with it much unless he actually goes to the Shattered Plains to see Leshwi, but it’s still on his mind, constantly. Too much is on his mind, constantly. He can't get out of his storming head.
Doing something physical is the only thing that helps. Recently, though, the something physical that he’s doing seems to always be... Adolin. Not that Adolin seems to mind much being used as a distraction, but it's probably not sustainable, and presumably that's why Adolin's invited him out to the training grounds to spar. He's got to do something else.
It’s often cloudy and cold up in the mountains, but today it’s sunny, almost warm, so of course Adolin wanted to do something outside. He’s expressed more than once missing the glaring sun of Kholinar and even the desert heat of the Shattered Plains.
Adolin looks so good in the sun, too. He was never meant to be kept in the shade.
When Kaladin finds him out on the training grounds, Adolin and Syl are running through sword forms, spinning in a gentle dance across the sand, bathed in sunlight. They look so elegant together, like the swirling flicker of stormlight in a gemstone. Adolin is truly incredible with a sword, no matter how much he insists it’s no longer the case. He has such an intuitive sense of where his blade is in space, the exact reach, the precise force he’s applying with each blow. It’s the thing Kaladin had first, grudgingly, respected about Adolin, even when he resented him, even when he didn’t want to respect him on account of his privilege, his political power, his naivety, at the time. It was impossible not to respect genuine hard-won skill. And Adolin’s then-arrogance about it had been, unfortunately for Kaladin’s sanity, entirely earned.
He stops some distance away from where Adolin and Syl are practicing. This close, he can see that Adolin even has his storming eyes closed.
Kaladin takes an emerald mark out of his pouch and throws it at him. Adolin spins and, without even opening his eyes, hits the tiny sphere with his blade and pings it back at him. Kaladin catches it again.
Not a great swordsman, he thinks. Sure.
“Testing me?” Adolin says, turning through the final few steps of his sword form. He finally comes to a stop, opening his eyes.
“You two look good together,” Kaladin says.
“I feel a bit spoiled, getting to use two Shardblades at the same time,” Adolin says.
He’s technically using one as a body part, but that’s another matter.
“Thought you were used to being spoiled,” Kaladin says.
“Only by your love for me,” Adolin says, smiling beatifically.
“Oh, not your closet with enough jackets to clothe all of Alethkar?”
Adolin points Syl at him in warning. “Those all serve different purposes.”
Kaladin snorts. “I’m sure.”
Syl disappears from Adolin’s hand and reemerges in the form of a woman, hovering by his head, hands on her hips. “They are very nice jackets, you should get a few yourself!”
“Not you, too.”
“Thank you, Syl,” Adolin says, gratified.
Truthfully, Kaladin stands little chance against them working together. They’ve proven that over and over.
It’s good, though. Because he’d meant it when he said he wanted Syl to have another friend—but that’s not all of it.
He wants Syl to have an anchor.
If something happens to him, he wants her to have something she can grab onto, someone she can connect with enough that she won’t just fade back into Shadesmar. Maybe, if she trains enough with Adolin, then if Kaladin dies she can grab hold of his hand and not just fall into obscurity. He doesn’t know if it works that way, but it’s all he has.
In any case, the thought is comforting.
“Did you come to spar?" Adolin asks, "Or just to criticize my clothes?”
“To spar.”
“Excellent. I want to see what we can actually do together.” He nods at Syl.
“Well, if you’re going to fight with Syl, then I want to borrow Maya,” Kaladin says.
“You’re gonna take my leg?” Adolin exclaims. “Haven’t I suffered enough?”
“You’re gonna leave me unarmed?” Kaladin counters. “Besides, I’m sure you have others.”
“Oh, yeah, just legs lying around everywhere.” Adolin shakes his head and sighs. “Fine, I’ll use one of Navani’s prosthetics. If it’s okay with Maya.” He tilts his head as he listens to whatever she says, then groans. “She says, ‘That’s only fair, Adolin.’” He listens further, then says, scandalized, “Maya!”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘What, are you afraid I’m going to kick your ass?’”
Kaladin tries not to laugh. “You would do that to him, Maya?”
“She says, ‘I like to win,’” Adolin says.
No wonder Maya and Adolin get along.
“So do I,” Kaladin says, and feels like he almost hears Maya’s answering cheer.
He waits a few minutes while Adolin fetches a different prosthetic, and then Adolin is handing over Maya, hilt-first. Kaladin wonders when the last time was that he let anyone else wield her. He shares his Shardplate with other men in battle whenever needed, but Blades are different.
As soon as he takes the Blade, Maya’s voice sounds in his head— Hi, Kaladin!— and he starts. He hasn’t spoken to her directly in— he honestly doesn’t know how long. Her voice is much more sure than it was then, much more present.
“Hey, Maya,” he says.
I haven’t spoken to you in forever, she says. I wanted to thank you.
“For...?”
‘For,’ she echoes, a bit of a scoff in it. For saving his LIFE.
“You don’t have to thank me,” Kaladin says weakly.
And, Maya adds, softer, for loving him.
Kaladin says, again, throat tighter, “You don’t have to thank me.”
Too bad, she says, and he smiles despite himself.
Now, she continues, I’m still going to kick his ass.
“I’d expect nothing less. How do you want to do this? Are you able to become a spear?”
I can’t. I can’t change shape like the bonded Radiant spren can, I can only do it for Adolin. I’m sorry.
“It’s alright, I get it.” He yells across the field to Adolin, who’s walked some distance away to practice with Syl. “If I have to fight with a sword, you have to fight with a spear!”
“Oh, come on!”
It’s good for him, Maya says. And you.
“Yeah, sorry to tell you, but I’m not that good with a sword.”
Equally matched, Adolin is awful with a spear.
She really pulls no punches, Kaladin thinks.
You know the sword stances? Maya asks.
Kaladin knows them. That doesn’t mean he’s good at them.
But he sets his stance, adjusts his grip on the hilt, and slowly starts to move through them, warming up.
Kaladin had been aware that Maya was a massive Blade, but wielding her himself is a different matter. She’s lighter than she looks, thanks to the magic of the Shardblades and the stormlight he’s carrying, but there’s still a heft to her that he doesn’t get with a spear. The hilt is a two-handed grip, and he can feel why it has to be--though he's seen Adolin wield Maya one-handed on occasion, at least while wearing Shardplate. Well, at least now he knows where Adolin gets his storming back muscles from.
He works Maya through the basic steps, trying to get a better feel for the weapon. Strike, spin, step back, across, reverse strike, spin-- it's odd to have so little leverage, he's used to a much wider more malleable hand position, but it's also fast, faster than he'd expected, and more fluid. His shoulder position is more quick and open, faster to spin into a strike, but more unstable.
See, you're getting the hang of it, Maya says.
Kaladin huffs. "If only."
Across the field, Adolin spins Syl’s spear across his shoulders, nearly dropping her as he tries to catch her again, and laughs. As unpracticed as Kaladin is with a longsword, Adolin is just as weak with a spear. Oh, Kaladin thinks, this is going to be such a mess.
But watching Syl fly around Adolin’s head, hands on her hips as she lectures him, then ruffle his hair as he laughs, Kaladin can’t help but smile.
By the time he’s finished running through the sword stances, he at least feels he’s got a slightly better sense of how Maya moves, where she is in the air during a swing, her weight and length, how he has to adjust his technique to adapt to the difference in grip and leverage. He settles back into a neutral stance. Adolin, too, steadies his grip on Syl, turning to face him expectantly.
Tell him we’re going to destroy him so hard he gives up the sword and becomes an ardent, Maya says in Kaladin’s mind.
Kaladin splutters. “I’m not saying that!”
KALADIN.
Kaladin sighs. “Maya says, ‘We are going to destroy you so hard you give up the sword and become an ardent.’”
“Yeah, likely story, Maya!” Adolin yells back. “Death before surrender!”
DEATH IT IS, THEN! Maya says gleefully.
Kaladin tries to remember what age exactly Adolin won his Blade because storms, they really are just like childhood friends together.
“Syl says, ‘We will grind each of your bones into dust and scatter them to the wind,’” Adolin reports, then frowns, looking down at her. “Isn’t that a little aggressive?”
“Say it to my fucking face, Syl!” Kaladin yells, trying not to laugh, and she emerges briefly in the form of a small woman to blow him a kiss before re-manifesting as a spear in Adolin’s hands.
Kaladin feels all charged now, but not with the stress and adrenaline of battle. With energy and excitement. He does love a challenge, when it doesn’t come with the risk of some horrible consequence.
They’ve drawn a crowd, too. They often do when they spar, but this time, a lot of Kaladin’s Windrunners are watching, too. Curious to see if he can manage with a different weapon, he supposes.
Not to mention, it’s almost unheard of for Radiants to share weapons. That in itself is drawing attention.
“Prepare yourself for a brutal and humiliating public defeat!” Adolin yells, with a glance at the crowd, and then he charges. Kaladin steadies his grip, and lets Adolin come to him.
Adolin raises Syl high for a brutal downstroke and Kaladin swings Maya across to meet him.
She hits Syl with a massive metallic CLANGGG!!! that rings out across the training ground. The sheer weight of the blow pushes Adolin back, skidding across the sand as he digs his heels in. He manages to use the greater leverage of the spear to push Kaladin off and back, then ducks his swing, jabbing the weapon forward.
Kaladin lashes himself back and out of the way. Adolin chases him, raising Syl as if to bring her down in a slashing blow, which is not how to fight with a spear— Kaladin almost says so and as a result nearly doesn’t get Maya up in time to block. Sparring now, spear training later.
He brings his sword down and across— but isn’t close enough to hit, Damnation, he’s used to the greater reach of a spear. Adolin comes at him again, but he spins into his strike too fast, expecting the shorter range and maneuverability of his sword and overbalancing against Syl’s length and lighter weight.
Kaladin sees an opening, hooks his blade under Adolin’s grip and flips Syl up and out of his hands.
Adolin stumbles but regains his balance, swiping his hair out of his eyes. “This is downright amateurish,” he says, but there’s a laugh in his voice as he says it.
“You’re using your spear like it’s a sword,” Kaladin tells him. “You need to take advantage of the range to keep me back. And it’s a thrusting motion, not slashing side-to-side.”
“Oh it’s a thrusting motion,” says Adolin, grinning. “I see.”
“Don’t disrespect Syl with your innuendos.”
You can disrespect me with innuendos, Maya says in his head. I think it’s funny.
Kaladin groans. “Maya.”
“Syl says it’s fine, she wants to learn more sex jokes,” Adolin says, smug.
Storming spren.
Adolin recovers Syl and steadies his grip on his spear again. Kaladin says, “What, you’re not going to correct my sword form?”
Adolin scoffs. “I’m not helping you win. I’ll correct you after I destroy you.”
With that, he attacks Kaladin again.
This time, he at least tries to get Kaladin in the side with a stabbing motion instead of swinging the spear like a sword, but he gets in too close— Kaladin ducks the blow, spins in along the length of the spear and taps Maya against Adolin's neck. Technically Adolin is now 'dead', but their duels usually don't end until one of them is so exhausted or pinned down they're forced to yield. Hits mean very little.
Indeed, Adolin spins and bashes him in the side with his elbow, knocking him off balance. On his way down Kaladin grabs Adolin’s thigh, pulling him to the ground with him— but before he can get him in a proper grapple Adolin makes his body slick as oil with stormlight and slips away, jumping back up to his feet.
Kaladin scrambles to his feet and lashes himself back before Adolin can take advantage of their proximity.
His right arm is dominant, Maya says in Kaladin's mind. He under-protects his left side. You can get him that way.
Kaladin can’t help but laugh. “Maya, that’s low.”
Well, I keep telling him, maybe he’ll learn.
Kaladin feints left, drawing Adolin into a right-handed strike, then darts in to his left and lands a glancing hit to his side.
Adolin jumps back. “Wow, Maya, really?”
Really!
Kaladin’s sure Syl is now spilling all his weaknesses to Adolin in return.
Indeed as they reconnect to exchange blows Adolin side-swipes him with Syl’s staff, catching his arm, which would normally be tucked in closer to his side with the wider two-handed grip of a spear.
This is a good exercise, if a little bit embarrassing. Kaladin honestly hadn’t realized how dependent he’d become on his favored weapon.
It's odd, too, fighting with someone else's Shardblade. Not necessarily unpleasant, he likes Maya, but he and Syl have been together long enough now that they can anticipate each other's movements, can fight together almost like one being. It feels strange not to have that. He can hear Maya, but they aren't really connected.
It's a bit distracting, losing that intuition. And Damnation, it’s hard to get in close enough to land a hit on someone wielding a spear. He hasn’t often thought about it from this perspective, he just relies on the spear’s defensive range instinctively when fighting. Now, even when he takes advantage of his lashings, it’s storming hard to get past Syl.
Adolin's spear form is getting better, Syl must be giving him pointers. This time when they reconnect he keeps his stance wide and waits for Kaladin to come to him, which puts Kaladin at the disadvantage with his shorter range. Nevertheless, he darts in, spinning Maya into a swing--
Adolin catches him right in his side. The loss of range is going to make Kaladin insane.
Kaladin, you're thinking too much, Maya says. That's not your fighting style.
"How would you know that?"
I've watched you, silly! Don't make it technical. You aren't going to learn years of longsword technique in an hour. Just feel it.
As they separate again and reset their stances, Kaladin closes his eyes. Feels his feet on the ground, the weight of his body, Maya in his hands, the sun on the back of his neck. Sets a quarter lashing upward just for a bit of freer movement and feels all his joints loosen, his hair lifting off his shoulders.
When he opens his eyes, Adolin is grinning at him. "Oh, now it's a fight, is it?"
"I don't know what you mean." His storming eyes are probably glowing, damn it.
"Now that you're warmed up, have you finally decided to focus?"
"Have you finally decided to become semi-competent?"
Adolin's grin only widens, something wicked in it. "Try to put me on the ground and find out, Kaladin Stormblessed."
There's no technique, there's only his body, and his Blade, and Adolin, and the air. And he knows the air, and he knows Adolin. Distantly he can hear their audience--mainly Bridge Four--whooping and hollering encouragements but it all mostly fades out. He can hear his own heartbeat louder than anything.
This time Kaladin doesn't think. He just acts.
He's on Adolin before he realizes he's moved, one powerful strike that Adolin catches on Syl, then another, each boosted by stormlight so the Blades crack against each other and pop with light and Adolin's arms shake. He steps back out of the range of Kaladin's next swing, spear swept up by his side, then spins back in to strike a blunt blow with Syl's staff--
Kaladin takes one hand off the hilt and grabs Maya's blade, blocking the strike with a wide two-handed grip like he would with a spear. He pushes Adolin up and off, spins around his shoulder and uses the leverage of the two-handed grip to drive him down by the back of his neck. Adolin ducks, rolls, and comes back up on his knees to catch Kaladin's downstrike--
--their blades lock at the crossguard-- because Syl's now a Shardblade.
Kaladin decides not to call him out on it. All told he has more reason to learn to fight competently with a sword than Adolin does with a spear.
Of course this means Adolin's speed and confidence immediately double. He surges back to his feet and Kaladin's forced back, dancing across the sand in a defensive stance, unable to get in any offensive strikes as he's occupied with parrying Adolin's powerful, fluid blows. At least the issue with range is mitigated, now if only he can--
Kaladin, Maya says.
Right, right, don't think, just feel.
It was what he'd wanted to accomplish with this exercise anyway.
He throws himself back in against Adolin, spinning through each strike, letting the wind guide him. The clashing metal becomes like music, frantic, rhythmic, echoing, accompanying his breath and his blood roaring in his ears, calling to him each time their blows align and he meets Adolin's eyes. Adolin's being driven backwards now but he looks so storming happy about it. Insane man.
Adolin is so fluid with the sword that Kaladin can't think, he just has to react. Spin, duck, parry, underhand swing, overhand swing-- he catches Adolin's blade by his head, pushes him back, down, disengage, spin, reengage, faster, harder, each blow louder, brighter, more punishing, more stormlight burning around them--
It's thrilling. And it's fun. And Adolin's smile is so, so bright. Kaladin's shoulders are burning but he doesn't want it to end.
Eventually Adolin's skill wins out. He gets his blade wedged between Kaladin's arms and pushes the hilt down across his forearm so Kaladin is forced to drop Maya or get his shoulder dislocated. He drops her, but lunges in to grab Adolin's wrist, digging his fingers into the pressure point until Adolin's grip is forced open and he drops Syl. Then he steps in and presses his hand to Adolin's chest, lashing him backwards hard.
Adolin plants his feet hard in the sand and just adds more and more friction to counteract Kaladin’s lashings, leaning against his hand.
Kaladin draws more stormlight and pushes him harder.
Adolin grits his teeth and pushes back. His feet skid an inch on the sand but he holds firm.
Kaladin pushes him harder. Stormlight sparks where his hand touches Adolin's chest. “You’re going to go absolutely flying when you run out of stormlight,” he tells him.
"You're right, I can't compete with you in raw power," Adolin says.
And he drags Kaladin in by his collar and kisses him.
Kaladin freezes, too startled to do anything, dropping his lashings automatically.
Adolin spins and gets him in a headlock and drags him to the ground.
Kaladin regains his wits as soon as his shoulder hits the dirt, and he twists, rolling and throwing Adolin over his shoulder, and then it's a mess of grappling and sand and dust and he manages to get Adolin's hands pinned with a lashing and his legs around Adolin's chest, and he scrounges Maya up from the sand and holds her to Adolin's neck, his other hand gripped in Adolin's hair and pulling his head back to bare his throat. And Adolin, panting and half-lying in his lap, says, "Tell me, Kal, do you use this technique on all your opponents? Because I might get jealous."
"Only with the ones that start it."
"You were supposed to say, 'No, you're the only one I'm killing in this erotic manner, Adolin, you're special.'"
"Sorry," Kaladin says. "You're special. Do you yield?"
Adolin's voice is strained from how Kaladin is forcing his neck to crane. "No, I'm kind of enjoying it, actually."
"I know better than to let you go before you say yes."
"Fine, I yield."
Kaladin lets him go.
Adolin goes to roll to his feet-- but falls back down in the sand, clutching his knee. "Fuck."
Kaladin eyes him. "Did you overdo it?"
Adolin grimaces. "It was a calculated sacrifice." He sprawls back on the sand. "Calculated."
"I'm sure."
Syl, tiny, lands on Adolin's nose. "Good effort," she says. "Next time we'll get him!"
Adolin gives her a tired thumbs up.
Destroyed him, Maya says smugly, and Kaladin can't help a tiny smile.
He slumps down to lie on the sand, shoulder brushing Adolin’s. Syl spins around his head, touching his cheek, then disappears.
Kaladin looks up at the sky. The sun is so bright today that it’s almost hard to look directly up at it, but its rays are warm on his face, and the sand is hot against the back of his neck. And he feels kind of tired. Good tired. Mostly.
“You okay?” Adolin asks.
“I just have a lot on my mind,” Kaladin says.
“I’ve noticed.”
“What, you’re not getting enough attention?”
“Oh, I’m getting plenty of attention. I’m getting mauled by attention.” Out of the corner of his eye, Kaladin sees him press on a tiny bruise on his own throat. He can just imagine Adolin's storming grin. “You’re a very intense person, you know?”
Kaladin rubs his forehead tiredly. “I’ve been told.”
“Not opposed to it,” Adolin adds. “Just wanted to make sure you were… you know.”
Kaladin thinks about it. The mental circles he’s been going in for weeks now. He looks up at the sky, mostly clear with a scattering of clouds; the wind tickles his face. “Am I creating a war that doesn’t need to exist?” he asks at last.
“I don’t know if I’d call it a war,” Adolin says. “You’re having second thoughts about trying to work with the Singers?”
More like fourth or fifth or sixth thoughts, for how often Kaladin goes around the issue. “It’s not… our goal that’s the problem. I want everyone to finally be free of Odium. I just think… for as long as I’ve been old enough to understand it, there’s always been a war. Skirmishes between the highprinces, the war on the Shattered Plains, the war against Odium. Now there’s not and I just…” The clouds roll high overhead, just playing, not threatening rain, but briefly dampening the sun. “Do I even know how to exist without one?”
Adolin is thoughtfully silent for a long moment. Then he says, “You’re asking the wrong person, Kal.”
To not have a war, some goal, some enemy, some purpose— he doesn’t know where his momentum is supposed to go. How to push so long and finally have the wall not only give, but vanish entirely. It makes him feel unmoored, disconnected from gravity.
“I’ll start a war against Odium if it’s right,” he says. “I don’t want to be doing it just because I don’t know what to storming do with myself otherwise.”
“You haven’t made anyone help you, and they’ve done so anyway,” Adolin points out. “You’re not the only one who feels something more needs to be done here. I think if your thoughts had no grounding, you wouldn’t have gotten Venli, and Rlain, and Renarin on board so easily.”
That helps, a bit.
“I can’t order anyone to participate in this,” he says. “I won’t.”
“I mean, you’ll need some order on the battlefield.”
“Once people agree to be on the battlefield, there’ll be a chain of command, but I can’t make people risk death on my watch. I won’t.”
“Knowing you, you won’t have to order anyone. They’ll follow you anyway.”
That’s part of what worries him.
“I certainly will,” Adolin adds, turning on his side to face him. Kaladin can just make out, in his peripheral vision, the openness of his expression. The trust.
“Because you believe in this, or because you just need to be doing something?”
“Can’t it be both? Is it so bad to need to be doing something?”
“I don’t know,” Kaladin says. “I really don’t know.”
They're still lying there when the members of Bridge Four in attendance come over to them, and Kaladin finds himself staring up at four curious faces. "Did you die or something?" says Skar.
"That would be too easy."
"He's just brooding," says Adolin.
"As if you're not also lying here."
"Excuse you, I can't even walk. I'm in agonizing pain." His tone of voice rather suggests otherwise.
"In that case--" Kaladin gets to his feet, reaching down to grab Adolin's hand and haul him up too, dragging him up over his shoulder with an arm under his thighs to lift him off the ground.
Adolin squawks indignantly. "Hey."
"You can't walk," Kaladin reminds him. He starts to carry him off the training grounds.
"Where are you taking me anyway?"
"Physical therapy."
He can't see the looks that gets him from his men, but Adolin is laughing now, so he can imagine. And he can't help but smile to himself, just a little, as they walk on.
Later that night, Kaladin finds himself--as Adolin had said--brooding in the corner of one of Urithiru's many taverns. Before they'd gotten far off the training pitch, Adolin had been drawn away into a meeting with some of the other highprinces, and so Bridge Four had taken it upon themselves to preoccupy Kaladin with endless questions about the duel, warlight, what it was like to fight with someone else's blade, his feelings for Adolin--that part he shut down--and so on and so forth. Once they were gone, he meant to go meet up with Adolin again, as they had agreed to get drinks once he freed up-- but even though he's at the tavern, Kaladin hasn't been able to make himself go over to him yet.
He still feels so scattered. As fun as sparring with Adolin was, it didn’t really manage to get his mind to shut up. Maybe he needs to go for a flight or something. There’s a highstorm soon. That might help. The noise and the chill and the immense power of it, overwhelming his senses. How the war can be theoretically 'over' and yet so much still up in the air, so much still uncertain, so much going on in his head, he really doesn't know.
He can actually see Adolin across the room, chatting with Syl and whoever passes by, but so far he's just been letting Kaladin have his space, letting him think. Waiting for him to come back over on his own. Kaladin keeps sneaking glances at him across the room. Just looking and remembering, he’s there.
He still has Maya, too. Adolin never asked for her back. And she doesn’t seem to want to return to Shadesmar yet, so he’s just kept holding onto her, letting her lie sideways across his lap as he ponders and slowly nurses his drink.
As he’s thinking about it, about her, about Adolin, she says, Kaladin. Can I ask you for a favor?
“Of course,” he says.
Possibly a somewhat large favor.
“Go on.”
He gets the impression of her wrapping her arms around herself, as if seeking reassurance before asking. If I— if we— ever lose him, will you help me to avoid fading back into Shadesmar?
It hurts even to hear her voice the possibility. “I… had much the same thought regarding Syl,” he confesses.
I thought as much.
“Is that why you asked?”
Partially. I felt you would understand. I don’t want to— to lose my reason again. And if I do, I don’t want my Blade wielded by a stranger.
“Of course not.” Kaladin doesn’t particularly want to think about that eventuality, but he’s always thinking about every eventuality, and that is one. He sets Maya’s Blade point first in the floor and leans on it, forehead pressed to the crossguard. He swears, “If something happens, I’ll keep you with me.”
Thank you, she says. I’ve worked so hard to come back, I don’t want to lose that.
For all her earlier cheer and playfulness during their duel, her voice now is serious and solemn, and in that moment, he feels he understands Maya very deeply. “You don’t have to explain it to me,” he says quietly.
I know.
They stay there for a moment, and he almost thinks he can feel her presence, down in Shadesmar, a steady, ancient touch.
Eventually he opens his eyes and lifts his head. Across the way, Adolin is chatting animatedly with Syl, who’s bouncing cheerily around his head. He looks at them, and it hurts, suddenly, a sweet hurt, an ache deep in his chest. Longing. Fear. Worry. Everything is so fragile. So breakable. They've only just started to put it back together. And he can’t help but feel like all he’s doing is trying to break it. Risking everything good on a hunch, a hopeless dream.
Go to him, Kaladin, Maya says. It’s okay.
“Thank you,” he says. “For understanding.”
You don’t have to thank me.
His lips turn up in a half-smile. “Too bad.”
She finally fades back into Shadesmar with the faint impression of a laugh, disappearing to mist in his hands. Kaladin stands and goes over to Adolin, sliding onto the bench seat beside him and tucking himself under Adolin’s arm. Adolin doesn’t make him talk, just wraps his arm around his shoulders and keeps chatting with Syl, who’s trying—unsuccessfully—to take a sip of his wine. After her third failed attempt, she looks up at Kaladin and smiles, evidently pleased with him for coming back over.
He gives her a small smile back.