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Syl was her father’s daughter, finding freedom in the skies, though that freedom was beginning to scatter on the winds of an oncoming storm. She preferred to remain unseen. She watched the humans live their lives, feeling the echoes of old lives with her first Radiant, slowing regaining the pieces of who she once was.
Kaladin hadn’t sensed the shift, not beyond his realization that the everstorm held more just than wind and rain. Even she didn’t have a clear picture, just a heavy, portentous ache. Best not think about that. Instead, she’d focus on something closer, but just as odd: the Cryptic that had joined them in the tower.
She supposed she must have known a few, during that fuzzy time she’d spent bonded with her first Radiant, but even with her mind clearer from her renewed bond with Kaladin, she still thought of Cryptics as, well, cryptic. Watchers, not doers.
It was curious. She was curious. Maybe a bit protective, knowing how close Kaladin had gotten to a Cryptic.
She flew through the winding halls of Urithiru, this new-old place where wind creaked through high windows and voices carried through the halls. If she allowed herself to be seen, she would have appeared as a streak of light, walls glowing faintly blue-white. But she didn’t, and so all the dozens of people she passed would notice was a puff of air tickling hair and hands and fabric—if they noticed anything at all amidst the bustle of moving into the tower.
Shallan’s room wasn’t far. Not moments later, she had slipped through a crack in the door, glancing at the fine sheets on the bed and a desk already covered in charcoal and notebooks. She took care not to rustle the papers that were falling loose from their piles. A dress hung neatly near a mirror, and Syl took a moment to admire the shininess of the buttons. If she allowed herself to be seen, would there be a tiny Syl reflected in them?
“Mmm, hello.”
Syl shrieked, but at least she’d had the mind to go inaudible as well as invisible. Was Shallan nearby? Syl glanced around, then squinted at the mirror, noticing the odd gleam on its surface, like the ripples in water that never quite disappeared. The gleam shifted as the Cryptic appeared.
Well, she’d wanted this, right? A meeting. She huffed, planting her feet firmly in the air and taking a wide stance, just like Kaladin had taught his men. She crossed her arms. “Are you trying to scare me? I don’t scare easily!”
“I scared you?” The rippling in the mirror was now a veritable whirlpool as the Cryptic spun excitedly. “That was not my meaning.” Syl wanted to argue that she wasn’t scared, just startled, and that wasn’t the same thing at all, but the Cryptic spoke again. “I am called Pattern.”
She vaguely remembered how all the Cryptic had names like that, like systems or just… math-y things. Not something she was particularly interested in. “Why are you here?” she asked. She’d gone back to a solid stance, changing her filmy dress for one of those uniforms the soldiers wore. No, a bit nicer, like the highprince’s. Lots of shiny buttons.
“I’m with Shallan.”
She huffed. “Well, obviously. I mean, why are you here, in the Physical Realm?
“It’s coming.” With those two words, Syl deflated, switching back over to her normal girlish attire.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I came to help.”
“Yeah?” she said again, this time in surprise. “I thought you Cryptics stayed in Shadesmar.” She squinted at a faraway memory. “In cities?”
“Mmm,” Pattern replied. The humming was a bit different, a little more subdued. “I volunteered.”
“Huh.” Not sure what to do with that, she flipped through a few shapes, broam and inkwell and cremling, before settling back on Syl. “So what part was the lie?”
Pattern buzzed. “There was no lie.”
“None of it?” Syl said.
Syl watched as Pattern spun a little, wobbling out of the shiny part of the mirror. He didn’t fall, however. Instead, he seemed to skim the surface of the mirror’s metal frame, becoming a moving filigree. “Cryptics are drawn to lies, mmm.”
She rolled her eyes. An evasive answer, of course. But he spoke again before she could.
“To have truth, there must be lies. Lies to fuel Truth.”
It made… a bit of sense, she supposed. “Dishonor doesn’t need to exist for there to be Honor,” she said, although it had certainly made Kaladin stand out like a bright, warm fire, his honorable nature drawing her in as contrast to the horrible people around him. That same fire had spread through the others, and now there were squires again, and things were changing.
As if Pattern heard her thoughts, he continued, “The world changes, but we don’t.” He hummed. “We Cryptics must change, and so I came.”
How strange, Syl thought. A Cryptic doing instead of watching.
“It wasn’t pleasant, but now things are very interesting! I am learning more and more.”
Syl opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a girlish voice, muffled but growing louder. “Pattern? Are you talking to yourself?”
Syl was invisible, but she still flitted behind the mirror as a ribbon, the thin stream of her body fitting between the wall and the cool metal. Not seconds later, Shallan stepped towards them, her coppery hair wet and clinging to her neck as she wiped her face with a cloth. She glanced at the mirror, her eyes landing on the whirling spren.
“Mmm!” said Pattern, which—was it a lie? Syl wasn’t sure if that was a yes or no.
“Well, we’ve got to get to a meeting soon. Apparently being Brightness Radiant comes with a chull wagon’s worth of busywork.”
“You can help,” said Pattern.
“Yes, yes,” said Shallan. She sighed, squishing a sopping wet curl. “And I will. This is just… it’s a lot.”
Pattern hummed and began to move towards Shallan, and she obligingly set her free hand on the desk. Lines moved across her skin as he climbed onto the blue sleeve of her robe, nestling into one of the wrinkles until he matched its shadow. “I believe in you,” he said, and Syl was surprised to see a twist in Shallan’s expression.
“You shouldn’t.”
“Shallan—”
“No, Pattern, just…” She sighed, then fast as Stormlight, her bearing changed, chin held proudly and eyes calculating as she stared at her reflection. It was like she was a whole other person. “We can do this. Kaladin’s flying out soon, and Adolin’s not a Radiant, and Jasnah—we’re here, and we can help.”
“I believe in you,” hummed Pattern again, though perhaps it was too low for Shallan to hear. She didn’t respond either way, carefully adjusting her hair and finger-combing through knots with a now distant gaze.
That was enough for Syl. There was something here, something precious and assuredly not a lie, and every moment behind this mirror felt bad. For the briefest of moments, Roshar had flipped upside down, Syl the dishonorspren fleeing from Pattern the truthspren as she zipped away.
Pattern spoke of change. The wind was ever-changing, which meant Syl would change too, with storm and shock and maybe even good things. She felt her bond with Kaladin, burning as it always did somewhere deep inside her self, and she followed its tug to where the man himself stood in the hallway outside one of the meeting rooms near the top of the tower.
“There you are,” he said. His eyebrows were grumpy, but he still looked glad to see her.
“Here I am!” She flew to him, changing her dress to a havah like the one on Shallan’s mirror, twirling a bit so the hemline danced with her. A row of tiny buttons went down the front.
He eyed her dubiously. “That your traveling outfit?”
“As befitting a lady of my station!” Syl cried.
“This isn’t a vacation,” he muttered, but there was a little smile as he said it.
He went to grab his supplies, ready to head out on their journey to Hearthstone. For her part, Syl was excited to see Kaladin’s home. He was as much shaped by his life there as his time in the war camps. Maybe it was the bond, but Syl had to know every part of him.
There were a few final preparations, mostly speaking to this person or that, and before long, it was time to leave.
“You’re clingy today,” Kaladin remarked.
Syl looked over from her spot on his shoulder. “Am I?”
“Are you nervous?”
Syl’s flew a handspan away, a little happy and a little embarrassed at the direct question. “No!”
Kaladin chuckled. “It may not be a vacation,” he said, “but I hope there’s some good at the end.”
“You’re going to see your family again. You deserve some light.”
“Light,” he murmured. “I just hope it works out. With the storm and the Voidbringers and—"
Syl flew back in close, so close that she could see his eyebrows getting grumpy again. How was he so unaware? He was light, shining so brightly that she would’ve squinted if she were human like him. “I believe in you!” she chirped, then scrunched her nose as she realized she’d been mimicking the Cryptic.
Kaladin caught it. “What?”
“What what?” she repeated.
He sighed, but there was a fondness there. “Let’s just go.”
Syl laughed, following him as he took to the skies.
