Chapter Text
—Then—
Adolin paced the too-quiet Kholin warcamp. He’d slipped his guards via the window of his bedroom; his brand new, barely trained, slave-branded guards.
The emptiness of the warcamp felt profound as he passed by the bridge crews. They were quiet, like they were afraid to draw attention in the dark. It created the eerie sensation of drifting through ghosts, but the wrong ghosts. His dead friends had been replaced by dead strangers.
As with all things, there was an exception, even in death.
Adolin paused, hidden in the shadow of an empty barrack, as he observed the bridge crew that fought at the Tower. “Bridge Four,” their captain called them. A deep laugh boomed through the night like a warhorn and Adolin jumped. The men joined the laughter, one shouting back and another mimicking the gigantic Horneater.
Captain Kaladin sat in the inner ring, dressed in crisp Kholin blue, a soft smile on his face. On the battlefield, the captain had seemed like a darkeyed officer of thirty Weepings or more. In the firelight, the captain couldn’t be much older than Renarin, if he was even that.
The little Herdazian cracked an obscene joke and Captain Kaladin laughed. An unwilling smile almost made it to Adolin’s face. The most beautiful sight in the cosmere was the smile of a broken soldier, and there was no doubt Captain Kaladin was broken. Even without the slave brands hidden beneath his long fringe, the man’s eyes were haunted. He was too aware, too untrusting.
Adolin lost track of time as he watched Bridge Four. They felt like the only sign of life in the entire warcamp. Only when the Horneater yawned did Adolin realize Nomon was almost at its zenith. Still, Adolin remained as the men drifted into the barrack. A hawk-faced man stayed out with Captain Kaladin longest, until he too disappeared.
Immediately, the captain’s shoulders sagged like his chest had caved inward. He stared into the fire, unblinking, all signs of his earlier mirth gone. Loneliness seemed to age him ten years. Adolin watched, entranced, as the captain removed the tie keeping his hair in a tail and began to absently comb out the knots with long, dexterous fingers. A tiny glowing windspren darted around him, investigating his hair, teasing the flamespren, following the smoke into the sky, then charging back down to poke at the captain’s nose.
Captain Kaladin smiled at the little blue-white spren, a small, exhausted, transcendent expression. Adolin closed his eyes, locking away the part of himself that would be willing to drown out the pain of the last week with the lines of that smile. The captain was a shash-branded darkeyes. He was a sculpture in a gallery with a glyph warning not to touch. Adolin would do best to remember that.
When he finally dared to look back toward the barrack, the fire was down to embers and the captain was gone.
—Now—
“What in Damnation is this?” asked Kaladin, staring down at the small package Adolin had placed in his hand. Urithiru’s indoor training grounds were busy with regular swordsmen and budding Radiants. Kaladin felt pleasantly breathless after going a round with Zahel and soundly losing. In contrast to Kaladin’s sweaty linen shirt and flyaway strands escaping the pale yellow ribbon in his hair, Adolin wore yet another new uniform, crisp Kholin blue with pale gold embellishments around the buttons. His hair was artfully disrupted, like he’d walked through a wind tunnel, then shaken it perfectly into place.
“It’s a gift,” said Adolin. Syl landed on the package and paced over it, investigating.
Kaladin narrowed his eyes. “I see that. Why?” Adolin had sought him out on the only day this week they didn’t have a meeting or drinks planned.
“Ooh, he’s blushing,” said Syl, a wicked grin on her face. Kaladin refused to think of the pink in Adolin’s cheeks as blushing because blushing was something women did that made them look demure. Adolin was not demure. Syl harrumphed. “You don’t think Adolin looks pretty?” Kaladin ignored her.
“Do you know what today is?” Adolin asked.
“Chachel?” Kaladin asked after a moment. He’d have to think slightly harder to recall which week, but he was almost certain they were still in the month of Tanat.
The pink faded from Adolin’s cheeks as he rolled his eyes, but his grin broadened. “One year ago today, you saved my life for the first time.”
Slightly stunned, Kaladin’s fingers closed around the gift. Syl darted into the air as a ribbon of light. “The Tower was only a year ago? Storms.”
“Absurd, isn’t it?” Adolin said with a laugh. “But yes, it was.” He nodded to Kaladin’s hand. “I just wanted to do something small to thank you.” The rose tint in his skin was back, and it was not pretty. It did not make Adolin’s eyes seem brighter in the afternoon sun. Kaladin certainly didn’t have any interest in brushing his thumb over Adolin’s skin to see just how red he could get.
“Thanks,” he said, tucking the gift into his pocket. He didn’t like opening gifts while people waited for him to be excited. His reactions always took time to process as his appreciation (or, at times, disappointment) built slowly. Adolin just gave him a grin and went off to charm someone else while Kaladin returned to training.
∙§∙
“Open it, open it, open it,” Syl chanted as they returned to Kaladin’s quarters. She hadn’t let him forget about the gift for longer than three seconds, as if it wasn’t burning a hole in his pocket. Kaladin leisurely changed into a sleep shirt, dropping his uniform into a pile with the gift still tucked away. Syl turned into a young woman and marched in front of his nose with her hands on her hips. “You’re doing this on purpose.”
Kaladin stifled a grin. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Kaladin,” she whined. “I want to see what Adolin got you.”
“It’s probably a pocketknife. Or a spearhead. Or....” Kaladin paused, unable to think of a third thing that would fit in the palm of his hand. He finally retrieved the package and sat on his bed. Syl hovered a few inches away, nearly vibrating to the point Kaladin thought she might summon anticipationspren.
He unfolded the blue fabric wrapped neatly around the object, a monogrammed handkerchief with the same pale gold embroidery as Adolin’s coat. Kaladin attempted to be annoyed rather than amused. No other man on the face of the planet would coordinate his outfit with his gift.
Well, maybe Wit.
“Whoa,” Syl whispered as Kaladin tucked the handkerchief aside, ignoring how Adolin’s familiar cologne clung to the fabric.
In Kaladin’s hand was a piece of wood, no larger than his palm, carved into the form of adoda and kalak in the shape of the Tower. Adoda, for which Adolin was named, and kalak for Kaladin. It had never occurred to Kaladin what those glyphs meant when placed together, because he’d never had reason to think of it before.
“What does it say?” Syl asked.
An old, familiar feeling twisted in Kaladin’s chest. He could name it but he refused to allow that feeling and that word to come together in his head. If he named it, there would be no turning back. Adolin was his responsibility, first and foremost. The fact he was the single person who could reliably pull Kaladin away from the Wretch was secondary.
The fact that the word and the feeling were about to collide was unacceptable.
“Kaladin?”
“Eternal light,” he said hoarsely. Syl hummed and said something silly, but Kaladin could only stare at the glyphpair. Kalak held adoda like a flame above a torch; the solid foundation to Adolin’s brilliant light.
After several long minutes, Kaladin wrapped his hand around the carving again and kept it at his chest, holding to it like a prayer.