Summary:Words of Radiance/Chapter 13
| Chapter 13: The Day's Masterpiece | |
|---|---|
| |
| Words of Radiance Summary | |
| Follows | Last Legion |
| Precedes | Chapter 14: Ironstance |
| Analytics | |
| Viewpoint | Shallan |
Epigraph
“
Warform is worn for battle and reign,
Claimed by the Gods, given to kill.
Unknown, unseen, but vital to gain.
It comes to those with the will.”
—From the listener Song of Listing, 15th stanza
Plot summary
- Tanatakah 1173
Shallan travels towards the Shattered Plains on one of Tvlakv's wagons. She sits next to Bluth, one of the stoic mercenaries hired by Tvlakv, who drives the wagon. She distracts herself by studying their surroundings - the flora of the southern Frostlands is completely unfamiliar to her.
When they stop at midday for a meal, Shallan asks Tvlakv to set up one of the empty slave wagons as a carriage for her. Wooden sides, typically used as protection for the slaves during highstorms, are hooked onto the sides of the cage to provide her some privacy. She also gets the cage's key from Tvlakv, though he seems hesitant to give it to her.
She crawls across the newly enclosed wagon - her feet are injured and standing on them is painful enough to make painspren appear - and opens the lid to Jasnah's trunk. Pattern, who had been instructed to stay hidden, waits inside. Shallan tells him that the notes need to reach the Shattered Plains, and that she intends to finish Jasnah's work of finding Urithiru and convincing the Alethi that the return of the Voidbringers is imminent. Pattern confirms that the threat from the Voidbringers is real and that they are the reason he was sent to her. As she continues to go through the contents of the trunk, Shallan finds a sketch she had done of Jasnah and is overcome with grief over her mentor's death, as well as the loss of the rest of her sketches. She also laments the loss of the broken soulcaster, which is at the bottom of the ocean, and speculates that the attackers could have been from the same group as Kabsal and her father (The Ghostbloods).
Characters
- present
- Shallan Davar (Point of view)
- Bluth
- Tvlakv
- Tag
- Pattern
- mentioned
Setting
Tvlakv's caravan.
Notable
- Pattern speaks briefly of his type of spren (Cryptic) and what drew them/him to Shallan: "Patterns...we...us...Worry. One was sent. Me." When Shallan asks "Why to me?", Pattern repies "Because of lies... You. Your Family... I know...little of humans. They break. Their minds break. You did not break. Only cracked... It is the lies that save you. The lies that drew me."
- Pattern also confirms that the Voidbringers are going to return: "Yes. Spren...spren of him. They come."
- The title of the chapter references the sketch Shallan finds of Jasnah, which she had completed and dubbed "the day's masterpiece" in Chapter 7 of The Way of Kings.[1]
Chapter Header
- Pattern icon
The Pattern icon is used in Shallan's chapters in the later parts of Words of Radiance.
- Shalash wedge
Shalash is the patron Herald of the Lightweavers, and Shallan speaks with and learns about Pattern, her Cryptic, in this chapter. Cryptics are the spren of Lightweavers.