Brandon Sanderson - Edgedancer 

Around them, the crowd had sensed that something was off. Though the rest of the market was busy, this one section grew still. Lift pulled back beside a small, broken cart—built narrow for navigating the slots—where several other urchins were betting on how long it would be before Tiqqa escaped “this time.”

As if in response to this, Darkness summoned his Shardblade and rammed it through the struggling girl’s chest.

The long blade sank up to its hilt as he pulled her onto it, and she gasped, eyes going wide—then shriveling and burning out, letting twin trails of smoke creep toward the sky.

The shopkeeper screamed, hand to his chest. He dropped the basket of fruit.

Lift squeezed her eyes closed. She heard the corpse drop to the ground, and Darkness’s too-calm voice as he said, “Give this form to the market watch, who will dispose of the body and take your statement. Let me witness the time and date … here.…”

Lift forced her eyes open. The two urchins beside her gaped in horror, mouths wide. One started crying with a disbelieving whine.

Darkness finished filling out the form, then prodded the shopkeeper, forcing the man to witness it as well in pen, and write a short description of what had happened.

That done, Darkness nodded and turned to go. The shopkeeper—fruit spilled at his feet, a stack of boxes and baskets to his side—stared at the corpse, papers held limply in his fingers. Then angerspren boiled up around him, like red pools on the ground.

“Was that necessary !” he demanded. “Tashi … Tashi above!”

“Tashi doesn’t care much for what you do here,” Darkness said as he walked away. “In fact, I’d pray that he doesn’t reach your city, as I doubt you’d like the consequences. As for the thief, she would have enjoyed imprisonment for her theft. The punishment prescribed for assaulting an officer with a bladed weapon, however, is death.”

“But … But that was barbaric! Couldn’t you have just … taken off her hand or … or … something?”

Darkness stopped, then looked back at the shopkeeper, who cringed.

“I have tried that, where the law allows discretion in punishments,” Darkness said. “Removing a hand leads to a high rate of recidivism, as the thief is left unable to do most honest work, and therefore must steal. In such a case, I could make crime worse instead of reducing it.”

He cocked his head, looking from the shopkeeper to the corpse, as if confused why anyone would be bothered by what he had done. Without further concern for the matter, he turned and continued on his way.

Lift stared, stunned, then—heedless of being seen—forced away her shock and ran to the fallen girl. She grabbed the body by the shoulders and leaned down, breathing out her awesomeness—the light that burned inside her—and imparting it to the dead young woman.

For a moment it seemed to be working. She saw something, a luminescence in the shape of a figure. It vibrated around the corpse, quivering. Then it puffed away, and the body remained on the ground, immobile, eyes burned.

“No…” Lift said.

“Too much time passed for this one, mistress,” Wyndle said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Gawx was longer.”

“Gawx wasn’t slain by a Shardblade,” Wyndle said. “I … I think that humans don’t die instantly, most of the time. Oh, my memory. Too many holes, mistress. But I do know that a Shardblade, it is different. Maybe if you’d reached this one right after. Yes, you’d have been able to then. It was just too long. And you don’t have enough power, either way.”

Lift knelt on the stones, drained. The body didn’t even bleed.

“She did draw a knife on him,” Wyndle said, his voice small.

“She was terrified! She saw his eyes and panicked.” She gritted her teeth, then snarled and climbed to her feet. She scrambled over to the shopkeeper, who jumped back as Lift seized two of his fruits and stared him right in the eyes as she took a big, juicy bite of one and chewed.

Then she chased after Darkness.

“Mistress…” Wyndle said.

She ignored him. She followed after the heartless creature, the murderer. She managed to find him again—he left an even bigger wake of disturbed people behind him now. She caught sight of him as he left the market, going up a set of steps, then walking through a large archway.

Lift followed carefully, and peeked out into an odd section of the city. They’d carved a large, conical chunk out of the stone here. It was deep a ways, and was filled with water.

It was a really, really big cistern. A cistern as big as several houses, to collect rain from the storms.

“Ah,” Wyndle said. “Yes, separated from the rest of the city by a raised rim. Rainwater in the streets will flow outward, rather than toward this cistern, keeping it pure. In fact, it seems that most of the streets have a slope to them, to siphon water outward. Where does it go from there though?”

Whatever. She inspected the big cistern, which did have a neat bridge running across it. The thing was so big that you needed a bridge, and people stood on it to lower buckets on ropes down into the water.

Darkness didn’t take the path across the bridge; there was a ledge running around the outside of the cistern also, and there were fewer people on it. He obviously wanted to take the route that involved less jostling.

Lift hesitated at the entrance into the place, fighting with her frustration, her sense of powerlessness. She earned a curse or two as she accidentally blocked traffic.

Her name was Tiqqa, Lift thought. I will remember you, Tiqqa. Because few others will.

Below, the large cistern pool rippled from the many people drawing water from it. If she followed Darkness around the ledge, she’d be in the open with nobody between them.

Well, he didn’t look behind himself very often. She just had to risk it. She took a step along the path.

“Don’t!” Wyndle said. “Mistress, stay hidden. He has eyes you cannot see.”

Fine. She joined the flow of people moving down the steps. This was the shorter route, but there were a lot of people on the bridge. In the bustle, because of her shortness, she lost sight of Darkness.

Sweat prickled on the back of her neck, cold. If she couldn’t see him, she felt certain—irrationally—that he was now watching her. She pictured again and again how he’d emerged from the market to grab the thief, a supernatural ease to his movements. Yes, he knew things about people like Lift. He’d spoken of her powers with familiarity.

Lift drew upon her awesomeness. She didn’t make herself Slick, but she let the light suffuse her, pep her up. The power felt like it was alive sometimes. The essence of eagerness, a spren. It drove her forward as she dodged and squeezed through the crowd of people on the bridge.

She reached the other side of the bridge, and saw no sign of Darkness on the ledge. Storms. She left through the archway on the other side, slipping back into the city proper and entering a large crossroads.

Shiqua-wrapped Tashikkis passed in front of her, interrupted occasionally by Azish in colorful patterns. This was certainly a better part of town. Light from the rising sun sparkled off painted sections of the walls, here displaying a grand mural of Tashi and the Nine binding the world. Some of the people she passed had parshman slaves, their marbled skin black and red. She hadn’t seen many of those here, not as many as in Azir. Maybe she just hadn’t been in rich enough sections of the city.

Lots of the buildings here had small trees or ornamental shrubs in front of them. They were bred and cultivated to be lazy, so their leaves didn’t pull in despite the near crowds.