“Her aunt Sol had once told Shai to smile at the worst insults and snap at the minor ones. That way, no man would know your heart.”

“I point out truths when I see them, Brightlord Sadeas. Each man has his place. Mine is to make insults. Yours is to be in-sluts.”

“Somehow, she had grown into a woman in between the fall of kings and collapse of worlds. Once she had been terrified of change. Then she had been terrified of losing Elend. Now her fears were more nebulous - worries of what would come after she was gone, worries of what would happen to the people of the empire if she failed.”

“You know,” OreSeur muttered quietly, obviously counting on her tin to let Vin hear him, “it seems that these meetings would be more productive if someone forgot to invite those two.”Vin smiled. “They’re not that bad,” she whispered.OreSeur raised an eyebrow.“Okay,” Vin said. “They do distract us a little bit.”“I could always eat on of them, if you wish,” OreSeur said. “That might speed things up.”Vin paused.OreSeur, however had a strange little smile on his lips. “Kandra humor, Mistress. I apologize. We can be a bit grim.”Vin smiled. “They probably wouldn’t taste very good anyway. Ham’s far too stringy, and you don’t want to know the kinds of things that Breeze spends his time eating….”“I’m not sure,” OreSeur said. “One is, after all, named ‘Ham.’ As for the other…” He nodded to the cup of wine in Breeze’s hand. “He does seem quite fond of marinating himself.”

“The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.”

“How can you be a lighteyes without light eyes?” Teft said with a scowl.“By having dark eyes,” Rock said, as if it were obvious. “We do not pick our leaders this way. Is complicated. But do not interrupt story.” He milked another reed, tossing the husk into a pile beside him.“The nuatoma, they see our lack of Shards as great shame. They want these weapons very badly. It is believed that the nuatoma who first obtains a Shardblade would become king, a thing we have not had for many years. No peak would fight another peak where a man held one of the blessed Blades.”“So you came to buy one?” Kaladin asked. No Shardbearer would sell his weapon. Each was adistinctive relic, taken from one of the Lost Radiants after their betrayal.Rock laughed. “Ha! Buy? No, we are not so foolish as this. But my nuatoma, he knew of your tradition, eh? It says that if a man kills a Shardbearer, he may take the Blade and Plate as his own. Andso my nuatoma and his house, we made a grand procession, coming down to find and kill one of your Shardbearers.”Kaladin almost laughed. “I assume it proved more difficult than that.”“My nuatoma was not a fool,” Rock said, defensive. “He knew this thing would be difficult, but your tradition, it gives us hope, you see? Occasionally, a brave nuatoma will come down to duel aShardbearer. Someday, one will win, and we will have Shards.”

“Breeze chuckled. "He was completely insane, you know. The worse things got, the more he'd joke. Iremember how chipper he was the very day after one of our worst defeats, when we lost most of ourskaa army to that fool Yeden. Kell walked in, a spring in his step, making one of his inane jokes.""Sounds insensitive," Allrianne said.Ham shook his head. "No. He was just determined. He always said that laughter was something theLord Ruler couldn't take from him. He planned and executed the overthrow of a thousand-yearempire—and he did it as a kind of . . . penance for letting his wife die thinking that he hated her. But, hedid it all with a smirk on his lips. Like every joke was his way of slapping fate in the face.""We need what he had," Elend said.”