Chapter Text
Yokska’s house was quiet, for once, despite all the people usually coming in and out of it. Right now, Adolin was helping Yokska organize her inventory after so many people had suddenly moved in. Kaladin was doing an evening shift with the Wall Guard. Shallan and Kaladin’s squires were playing cards downstairs, and Veil had had a long day and didn’t want to join them. That left Shallan and Elhokar alone, sharing a bottle of wine in a small bedroom upstairs.
Technically, it was improper to be alone with a man, but Shallan felt safe with him, and besides, she was causally engaged to his cousin. She looked up to find Elhokar standing at the window, looking out as if supervising the moonrise. He had an elegant air to him tonight; the way he stood, the way he sipped his wine. It wasn’t delicate; precise, rather. It looked like sipping wine was a skill he’d practiced and perfected to do just so, but it was something he still had to think about to do.
She decided to sketch him. At first, he was just shapes on the page, areas of blocked shading. Then lines, long and elegant like him. Slowly, straight lines turned into an anxious posture; irregular shapes turned into his hair, still somehow dented though he’d left his crown behind at Urithiru.
The sound of putting down one charcoal and picking up another caught his ear, and he turned to her.
“Are you drawing me?” he asked. He walked over eagerly, then frowned as he regarded his image. He absently flattened the edging of his jacket against his chest. “Bother. Was I supposed to stay still?”
She shook her head, partly because she’d already taken a Memory, and also because his question was rather late. No matter. She was in the zone now. Elhokar circled the sofa, watching over her shoulder.
“If you draw it, you can Lightweave it, right?” he asked.
She nodded, distracted at first, but something in his tone pulled her out of her drawing. Was he worried about her skills? She looked up at him curiously.
“Can you show me the drawing of the woman you Lightweaved me as? When we came into the city?”
“Oh. Sure.” She thought it was in this sketchbook… she flipped back. Ah. There. She lifted it up to show to him. “I saw her in the Bethab district in Urithiru. She struck me as so poised and in control. I guess that’s why I thought of her when I needed to Lightweave a disguise for you.”
Elhokar seemed to freeze for a moment. “What…what do you mean?”
“Uh,” Shallan felt flustered, “I didn’t mean you look feminine, of course, I mean she had a regal air, like you.” She hoped that didn’t sound unreasonable. Storms, she was always putting her foot in her mouth.
“Oh.” He almost sounded disappointed. She grimaced; she wasn’t sure what she’d said wrong but she needed to make a better impression on the King. She wanted to be someone he could trust. He was a good person, she knew; he just needed better people around him, and she wanted to be that kind of person for him.
He walked around again in front of her, looking strangely anxious. “Can you show me? Can you do it again, I mean? On me. I just…I was just thinking maybe a new disguise would be helpful at the parties.”
“Oh, absolutely, Your Majesty! That’s a great idea! And I assure you, you looked quite dignified. That havah would definitely work for a party.” She stood, though she didn’t really need to, but she felt she needed to make a good show of her skills. She breathed in Stormlight from a spherepouch in her satchel, allowed herself to glow a little, then breathed out, fixing her mind on the Memory of the Bethab woman.
The Stormlight successfully attached to Elhokar, and he looked down at his skirt. “Did it…” The question trailed off as he stared at his hands, one covered by an illusory safehand sleeve. The look on his face was unreadable, but Shallan felt a tension creeping up to the top of her spine, like she was intruding. If this were her father, he’d be mere moments away from some outburst.
She took a deep breath. This was not her father in front of her. This was Elhokar. He was different. If he wanted her to leave, he would just say so. It was one of the things she liked about him, that he always tried so hard to stay poised around her.
After a few gutwrenching moments, he cleared his throat, then looked around. “Where’s a mirror?”
“Next room,” Shallan answered. Adolin had been delighted to discover that Yokska had a small dressing-room attached to her bedroom.
He left, and she felt like she could breathe again. She had no idea how to parse this strange mood Elhokar seemed to be in all of a sudden.
“Brightness Davar!” he called out, and her heart raced again. She rushed into the dressing-room.
“What can I do for you, Your Majesty?”
He was staring into a full-length mirror. He didn’t turn, didn’t look at her. Perhaps he was still stinging from her comment from before? “Can you alter the image?”
“Well I can’t do fine details, but overall yes, Your Majesty. I could change the colour of the havah, or maybe even the length of the skirt. Simple changes.” She averted her eyes, in case he was sensitive about appearing as a woman.
He cleared his throat again. “Remove the face. I wish to see my own face.”
“Oh yes, I can do that easily!” Shallan cooed, and waved her hand theatrically as she adjusted her mental image.
He frowned as he regarded his image. “That’s…that’s not right.” He turned to look at her, looking almost angry. “Put the makeup back on. Not the face, you understand? Just the makeup.”
The tension of anticipating violence and getting a request for makeup broke something inside Shallan, and she let out a squeak of laughter despite herself.
Elhokar’s face fell, and he looked away. “Never mind, it doesn’t—”
“No, no!” Shallan reached out, grabbing his arm. “Elhokar, I mean Your Majesty, I’m so sorry, I just wasn’t expecting that. My skills aren’t quite that good. I can’t Lightweave makeup without drawing it first…”
Still looking away, he nodded briskly. “It’s fine. It was a stupid idea anyway.”
Storms. She’d made assumptions about him, feared him unnecessarily, and then laughed at him. She really needed to make it up to him. Not just because he was the King, but he just...he deserved better from her. “I have my makeup in the other room,” she said, an idea dawning. “I could just put it on you, if you wanted. No one will be coming up for a while still, and honestly, if you were at a party it would be better if you were wearing it for real so it acts like real makeup.” She prattled on about lipstick marks on wine glasses and melting eyeliner in hot rooms as she pulled him by the hand into the room she shared with the other female Lightweavers.
He seemed to follow her in a daze. She sat him down, her mind racing to think of what style of makeup would look best on him as she dug around in her own makeup kit. She pulled up a chair and sat opposite him, then cupped his chin in one hand to hold him still as she wiped his face with a damp cloth to clean his skin for the application. She talked just to keep him from overthinking it—she was not going to mess this up for him. She was going to make things right.
Suddenly she was grateful for all the time she’d spent doing Jasnah’s makeup for her—Elhokar had very similar colouring and face shape. She started with his cheeks to get him used to a brush in his face, then moved to his lips. By the time she got to his eyeliner, all stress had left his face. His eyes stayed closed easily, and his brow was open. His lips, now a gorgeous shade of warm reddish-umber, sat neutrally, almost smiling. “You’re doing very well, Elhokar,” she cooed. “Have you ever done this before?”
He hummed, and the corner of his mouth turned up a little. “When I was a child, Jasnah used to practice on me since she had no friends to practice on. I pretended it was an utter bore so she’d sneak me candy after. But I have to admit it’s…it’s soothing. It feels nice.”
Shallan smiled. “I’m so jealous! My brothers never let me practice on them. Hold on, one last thing.” She reached over to her kit and switched the eyeliner for a smudger. “We’ll keep it simple this time to see if you can tolerate it,” she said as she created a smoky eye for him, the way Jasnah liked hers done. “For a party, I could clean up your eyebrows and add more colour to your eyes, and contour your jawline like Jasnah does. It’d be fun, like having a sister to play makeup with. There.”
She pulled away and smiled at her handiwork as he opened his eyes, testing the feeling of the kohl on his eyelids and lipstick on his lips.
Wordlessly, he stood and left, presumably to find the mirror again.
Shallan waited.
And waited.
The silence stretched so long that Shallan risked checking on him. Had she done a poor job? Was he mad at her?
He stood in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection. She was surprised to find how easy it was to imagine him as a woman, now that she was looking at him like this. “I think you’d blend in quite well like that. Some people might mistake you for Jasnah, but for your eye colour,” she offered.
He didn’t look at her. He just stared, his lips in a tight line, his eyes shining.
Was he…
Was he crying?
Storms, this wasn’t good. Her muscles braced; her jaw clenched. “I should get back to drawing—” she said softly, making to leave.
“No.”
She froze. Was this it?
He turned and met her eyes, his brimming with tears. “I don’t think I can do this,” he whispered.
She rushed over and looped her arm with his. “Why not? You look lovely,” she reassured him. “Oh! Are you worried about being propositioned by the guests? I could teach you—”
He shook his head violently, breaking the illusion as the long braids of the woman’s illusion failed to move naturally with the movement. He sat heavily, putting his face in his hands.
No,—Shallan thought—his makeup...
He looked up and into her eyes. She didn’t need the evidence of his eyeliner running and smudged across his cheeks to know he was panicking and overwhelmed. She’d seen that expression in the mirror often enough. He struggled to catch his breath, and she knelt in front of him, helping him even out his breathing.
“What’s wrong, Elhokar?” she asked softly, and patted his hand.
“I think…” He closed his eyes and turned away, as if he were trying to turn away from the words he needed to say. “I think my life is a lie,” he whispered. “I thought…getting away from home would help the humming go away, would stop me from seeing those shapes in the mirror, but…I can still see one.”
Shallan’s heart stopped for a moment. Was Elhokar…a Lightweaver? She knew how painful the journey could be, and she steeled herself. Elhokar needed her right now. Whatever his secret was, she would accept it, as Adolin had accepted all the secrets she’d told him. As she’d accepted the divulgences of the Lightweavers who had dared to share their truths with her. To learn someone’s painful truth was an honour, and one she would never take lightly.
“If you’ve been lying to yourself,” she said carefully, “keep it in mind, and say the Words with me. Life before death.”
He closed his eyes. “Life before death.”
“Strength before weakness.”
He took a deep breath. “Strength before weakness.”
“Journey before destination.”
A tear slipped down his cheek. “Journey before destination.”
She saw nothing, no bright flash of light like a Windrunner. Lightweavers were more stealthy by nature. “Now…say your Truth.”
His eyes opened, their yellow-green wavering like the surface of a disturbed puddle as a lifetime of frozen pain thawed. The drops of his tears joined, turning into cleansing rivers. “I’m…I’m a woman.”
They were far past propriety now. Shallan pulled him…no, her into a tight embrace, and let her cry.