Kaladin hated the Weeping. It marked the end of an old year and the coming of a new one, four solid weeks of rain in a ceaseless cascade of sullen drops. Never furious, never passionate like a highstorm. Slow, steady. Like the blood of a dying year that was taking its last few shambling steps toward the cairn. While other seasons of weather came and went unpredictably, the Weeping never failed to return at the same time each year. Unfortunately.
Kaladin lay on the sloped roof of his house in Hearthstone. A small pail of pitch sat next to him, covered by a piece of wood. It was almost empty now that he'd finished patching the roof. The Weeping was a miserable time to do this work, but it was also when a persistent leak could be most irritating. They'd repatch when the Weeping ended, but at least this way they wouldn't have to suffer a steady stream of drips onto their dining table for the next weeks.
He lay on his back, staring up at the sky. Perhaps he should have climbed down and gone inside, but he was already soaked through. So he stayed. Watching, thinking.
Another army was passing through the town. One of many these days-they often came during the Weeping, resupplying and moving to new battlefields. Roshone had made a rare appearance to welcome the warlord: Highmarshal Amaram himself, apparently a distant cousin as well as head of Alethi defense in this area. He was of the most renowned soldiers still in Alethkar; most had left for the Shattered Plains.
The small raindrops misted Kaladin. Many of the others liked these weeks-there were no highstorms, save for one right in the middle. To the townspeople, it was a cherished time to rest from farming and relax. But Kaladin longed for the sun and the wind. He actually missed the highstorms, with their rage and vitality. These days were dreary, and he found it difficult to get anything productive done. As if the lack of storms left him without strength.
Few people had seen much of Roshone since the ill-fated whitespine hunt and the death of his son. He hid in his mansion, increasingly reclusive. The people of Hearthstone trod very lightly, as if they expected that any moment he could explode and turn his rage against them. Kaladin wasn't worried about that. A storm-whether from a person or the sky-was something you could react to. But this suffocation, this slow and steady dousing of life…That was far, far worse.
"Kaladin?" Tien's voice called. "Are you still up there?"
"Yeah," he called back, not moving. The clouds were so bland during the Weeping. Could anything be more lifeless than that miserable grey?
Tien rounded to the back of the building, where the roof sloped down to touch the ground. He had his hands in the pockets of his long raincoat, a wide-brimmed hat on his head. Both looked too large for him, but clothing always seemed too large for Tien. Even when it fit him properly.
Kaladin's brother climbed up onto the roof and walked up beside him, then lay down, staring upward. Someone else might have tried to cheer Kaladin up, and they would have failed. But somehow Tien knew the right thing to do. For the moment, that was keeping silent.
"You like the rain, don't you?" Kaladin finally asked him.
"Yeah," Tien said. Of course, Tien liked pretty much everything. "Hard to stare up at like this, though. I keep blinking."
For some reason, that made Kaladin smile.
"I made you something," Tien said. "At the shop today."
Kaladin's parents were worried; Ral the carpenter had taken Tien, though he didn't really need another apprentice, and was reportedly dissatisfied with the boy's work. Tien got distracted easily, Ral complained.
Kaladin sat up as Tien fished something out of his pocket. It was a small wooden horse, intricately carved.
"Don't worry about the water," Tien said, handing it over. "I sealed it already."
"Tien," Kaladin said, amazed. "This is beautiful." The details were amazing-the eyes, the hooves, the lines in the tail. It looked just like the majestic animals that pulled Roshone's carriage. "Did you show this to Ral?"
"He said it was good," Tien said, smiling beneath his oversized hat. "But he told me I should have been making a chair instead. I kind of got into trouble."
"But how…I mean, Tien, he's got to see this is amazing!"
"Oh, I don't know about that," Tien said, still smiling. "It's just a horse. Master Ral likes things you can use. Things to sit on, things to put clothes in. But I think I can make a good chair tomorrow, something that will make him proud."
Kaladin looked at his brother, with his innocent face and affable nature. He hadn't lost either, though he was now into his teenage years. How is it you can always smile? Kaladin thought. It's dreadful outside, your master treats you like crem, and your family is slowly being strangled by the citylord. And yet you smile. How, Tien?
And why is it that you make me want to smile too?
"Father spent another of the spheres, Tien," Kaladin found himself saying. Each time their father was forced to do that, he seemed to grow a little more wan, stand a little less tall. Those spheres were dun these days, no light in them. You couldn't infuse spheres during the Weeping. They all ran out, eventually.
"There are plenty more," Tien said.
"Roshone is trying to wear us down," Kaladin said. "Bit by bit, smother us."
"It's not as bad as it seems, Kaladin," his brother said, reaching up to hold his arm. "Things are never as bad as they seem. You'll see."
So many objections rose in his mind, but Tien's smile banished them. There, in the midst of the dreariest part of the year, Kaladin felt for a moment as if he had glimpsed sunshine. He could swear he felt things grow brighter around them, the storm retreating a shade, the sky lightening.
Their mother rounded the back of the building. She looked up at them, as if amused to find them both sitting on the roof in the rain. She stepped onto the lower portion. A small group of haspers clung to the stone there; the small two-shelled creatures proliferated during the Weeping. They seemed to grow out of nowhere, much like their cousins the tiny snails, scattered all across the stone.
"What are you two talking about?" she asked, walking up and sitting down with them. Hesina rarely acted like the other mothers in town. Sometimes, that bothered Kaladin. Shouldn't she have sent them into the house or something, complaining that they'd catch a cold? No, she just sat down with them, wearing a brown leather raincoat.
"Kaladin's worried about Father spending the spheres," Tien said.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," she replied. "We'll get you to Kharbranth. You'll be old enough to leave in two more months."
"You two should come with me," Kal said. "And Father too."
"And leave the town?" Tien said, as if he'd never considered that possibility. "But I like it here."
Hesina smiled.
"What?" Kaladin said.
"Most young men your age are trying everything they can to be rid of their parents."
"I can't go off and leave you here. We're a family."
"He's trying to strangle us," Kaladin said, glancing at Tien. Talking with his brother had made him feel a lot better, but his objections were still there. "Nobody pays for healing, and I know nobody will pay you for work anymore. What kind of value does Father get for those spheres he spends anyway? Vegetables at ten times the regular price, moldy grain at double?"
Hesina smiled. "Observant."
"Father taught me to notice details. The eyes of a surgeon."
"Well," she said, eyes twinkling, "did your surgeon's eyes notice the first time we spent one of the spheres?"
"Sure," Kaladin said. "It was the day after the hunting accident. Father had to buy new cloth to make bandages."
"And did we need new bandages?"
"Well, no. But you know how Father is. He doesn't like it when we start to run even a little low."
"And so he spent one of those spheres," Hesina said. "That he'd hoarded for months and months, butting heads with the citylord over them."
Not to mention going to such lengths to steal them in the first place, Kaladin thought. But you know all about that. He glanced at Tien, who was watching the sky again. So far as Kal knew, his brother hadn't discovered the truth yet.
"So your father resisted so long," Hesina said, "only to finally break and spend a sphere on some cloth bandages we wouldn't need for months."
She had a point. Why had his father suddenly decided to…"He's letting Roshone think he's winning," Kaladin said with surprise, looking back at her.
Hesina smiled slyly. "Roshone would have found a way to get retribution eventually. It wouldn't have been easy. Your father ranks high as a citizen, and has the right of inquest. He did save Roshone's life, and many could testify to the severity of Rillir's wounds. But Roshone would have found a way. Unless he felt he'd broken us."
Kaladin turned toward the mansion. Though it was hidden by the shroud of rain, he could just make out the tents of the army camped on the field below. What would it be like to live as a soldier, often exposed to storms and rain, to winds and tempests? Once Kaladin would have been intrigued, but the life of a spearman had no call for him now. His mind was filled with diagrams of muscles and memorized lists of symptoms and diseases.
"We'll keep spending the spheres," Hesina said. "One every few weeks. Partially to live, though my family has offered supplies. More to keep Roshone thinking that we're bending. And then, we send you away. Unexpectedly. You'll be gone, the spheres safely in the hands of the ardents to use as a stipend during your years of study."
Kaladin blinked in realization. They weren't losing. They were winning.
"Think of it, Kaladin," Tien said. "You'll live in one of the grandest cities in the world! It will be so exciting. You'll be a man of learning, like Father. You'll have clerks to read to you from any book you want."
Kaladin pushed wet hair off his forehead. Tien made it sound a lot grander than he'd been thinking. Of course, Tien could make a crem-filled puddle sound grand.
"That's true," his mother said, still staring upward. "You could learn mathematics, history, politics, tactics, the sciences…"
"Aren't those things women learn?" Kaladin said, frowning.
"Lighteyed women study them. But there are male scholars as well. If not as many."
"All this to become a surgeon."
"You wouldn't have to become a surgeon. Your life is your own, son. If you take the path of a surgeon, we will be proud. But don't feel that you need to live your father's life for him." She looked down at Kaladin, blinking rainwater from her eyes.
"What else would I do?" Kaladin said, stupefied.
"There are many professions open to men with a good mind and training. If you really wished to study all the arts, you could become an ardent. Or perhaps a stormwarden."
Stormwarden. He reached by reflex for the prayer sewn to his left sleeve, waiting for the day he'd need to burn it for aid. "They seek to predict the future."
"It's not the same thing. You'll see. There are so many things to explore, so many places your mind could go. The world is changing. My family's most recent letter describes amazing fabrials, like pens that can write across great distances. It might not be long before men are taught to read."
"I'd never want to learn something like that," Kaladin said, aghast, glancing at Tien. Was their own mother really saying these things? But then, she'd always been like this. Free, both with her mind and her tongue.
Yet, to become a stormwarden…They studied the highstorms, predicted them-yes-but learned about them and their mysteries. They studied the winds themselves.
"No," Kaladin said. "I want to be a surgeon. Like my father."
Hesina smiled. "If that's what you choose, then-as I said-we will be proud of you. But father and I just want you to know that you can choose."
They sat like that for some time, letting rainwater soak them. Kaladin kept searching those grey clouds, wondering what it was that Tien found so interesting in them. Eventually, he heard splashing below, and Lirin's face appeared at the side of the house.
"What in the…" he said. "All three of you? What are you doing up here?"
"Feasting," Kaladin's mother said nonchalantly.
"On what?"
"On irregularity, dear," she said.
Lirin sighed. "Dear, you can be very odd, you know."
"And didn't I just say that?"
"Point. Well, come on. There's a gathering in the square."
Hesina frowned. She rose and walked down the slope of the roof. Kaladin glanced at Tien, and the two of them stood. Kaladin stuffed the wooden horse in his pocket and picked his way down, careful on the slick rock, his shoes squishing. Cool water ran down Kaladin's cheeks as he stepped off onto the ground.
They followed Lirin toward the square. Kaladin's father looked worried, and he walked with the beaten-down slouch he was prone to lately. Maybe it was an affectation to fool Roshone, but Kaladin suspected there was some truth to it. His father didn't like having to give up those spheres, even if it was part of a ruse. It was too much like giving in.
Ahead, a crowd was gathering at the town square, everyone holding umbrellas or wearing cloaks.
"What is it, Lirin?" Hesina asked, sounding anxious.
"Roshone is going to put in an appearance," Lirin said. "He asked Waber to gather everyone. Full town meeting."
"In the rain?" Kaladin asked. "Couldn't he have waited for Lightday?"
Lirin didn't reply. The family walked in silence, even Tien growing solemn. They passed some rainspren standing in puddles, glowing with a faint blue light, shaped like ankle-high melting candles with no flame. They rarely appeared except during the Weeping. They were said to be the souls of raindrops, glowing blue rods, seeming to melt but never growing smaller, a single blue eye at their tops.
The townspeople were mostly assembled, gossiping in the rain, by the time Kaladin's family arrived. Jost and Naget were there, though neither waved to Kaladin; it had been years since they'd been anything resembling friends. Kaladin shivered. His parents called this town home, and his father refused to leave, but it felt less and less like "home" by the day.
I'll be leaving it soon, he thought, eager to walk out of Hearthstone and leave these small-minded people behind. To go to a place where lighteyes were men and women of honor and beauty, worthy of the high station given them by the Almighty.
Roshone's carriage approached. It had lost much of its luster during his years in Hearthstone, the golden paint flaking off, the dark wood chipped by road gravel. As the carriage pulled into the square, Waber and his boys finally got a small canopy erected. The rain had strengthened, and drops hit the cloth with a hollow drumming sound.
The air smelled different with all of these people around. Up on the roof, it had been fresh and clean. Now it seemed muggy and humid. The carriage door opened. Roshone had gained more weight, and his lighteyes's suit had been retailored to fit his increased girth. He wore a wooden peg on his right stump, hidden by the cuff of his trouser, and his gait was stiff as he climbed out of the carriage and ducked beneath the canopy, grumbling.
He hardly seemed the same person, with that beard and wet, stringy hair. But his eyes, they were the same. More beady now because of the fuller cheeks, but still seething as he studied the crowd. As if he had been hit with a rock when he wasn't looking, and now searched for the culprit.
Was Laral inside the carriage? Someone else moved inside, climbing out, but it turned out to be a lean man with a clean-shaven face and light tan eyes. The dignified man wore a neatly pressed, green formal military uniform and had a sword at his hip. Highmarshal Amaram? He certainly looked impressive, with that strong figure and square face. The difference between him and Roshone was striking.
Finally, Laral did appear, wearing a light yellow dress of an antique fashion, with a flaring skirt and thick bodice. She glanced up at the rain, then waited for a footman to hurry over with an umbrella. Kaladin felt his heart thumping. They hadn't spoken since the day she'd humiliated him in Roshone's mansion. And yet, she was gorgeous. As she had grown through her adolescence, she had gotten prettier and prettier. Some might find that dark hair sprinkled with foreigner blond to be unappealing for its indication of mixed blood, but to Kaladin it was alluring.
Beside Kaladin, his father stiffened, cursing softly.
"What?" Tien asked from beside Kaladin, craning to see.
"Laral," Kaladin's mother said. "She's wearing a bride's prayer on her sleeve."
Kaladin started, seeing the white cloth with its blue glyphpair sewn onto the sleeve of her dress. She'd burn it when the engagement was formally announced.
But…who? Rillir was dead!
"I'd heard rumors of this," Kaladin's father said. "It appears Roshone wasn't willing to part with the connections she offers."
"Him?" Kaladin asked, stunned. Roshone himself was marrying her? Others in the crowd had begun speaking as they noticed the prayer.
"Lighteyes marry much younger women all the time," Kaladin's mother said. "For them, marriages are often about securing house loyalty."
"Him?" Kaladin asked again, incredulous, stepping forward. "We have to stop it. We have to-"
"Kaladin," his father said sharply.
"But-"
"It is their affair, not ours."
Kaladin fell silent, feeling the larger raindrops hit his head, the smaller ones blowing by as mist. The water ran through the square and pooled in depressions. Near Kaladin, a rainspren sprang up, forming as if out of the water. It stared upward, unblinking.
Roshone leaned on his cane and nodded to Natir, his steward. The man was accompanied by his wife, a stern-looking woman named Alaxia. Natir clapped his slender hands to quiet the crowd, and soon the only sound was that of the soft rain.
"Brightlord Amaram," Roshone said, nodding to the lighteyed man in the uniform, "is absendiar highmarshal of our princedom. He is in command of defending our borders while the king and Brightlord Sadeas are away."
Kaladin nodded. Everyone knew of Amaram. He was far more important than most military men who passed through Hearthstone.
Amaram stepped forward to speak.
"You have a fine town here," Amaram said to the gathered darkeyes. He had a strong, deep voice. "Thank you for hosting me."
Kaladin frowned, glancing at the other townspeople. They seemed as confused as he by the statement.
"Normally," Amaram said, "I would leave this task to one of my subordinate officers. But as I was visiting with my cousin, I decided to come down in person. It is not so onerous a task that I need delegate it."
"Excuse me, Brightlord," said Callins, one of the farmers. "But what duty is that?"
"Why, recruitment, good farmer," Amaram said, nodding to Alaxia, who stepped forward with a sheet of paper strapped to a board. "The king took most of our armies with him on his quest to fulfill the Vengeance Pact. My forces are undermanned, and it has become necessary to recruit young men from each town or village we pass. I do this with volunteers whenever possible."
The townspeople fell still. Boys talked of running off to the army, but few of them would actually do it. Hearthstone's duty was to provide food.
"My fighting is not as glorious as the war for vengeance," Amaram said, "but it is our sacred duty to defend our lands. This tour will be for four years, and upon completing your duty, you will receive a war bonus equal to one-tenth your total wages. You may then return, or you may sign up for further duty. Distinguish yourself and rise to a high rank, and it could mean an increase of one nahn for you and your children. Are there any volunteers?"
"I'll go," Jost said, stepping forward.
"Me too," Abry added.
"Jost!" Jost's mother said, grabbing his arm. "The crops-"
"Your crops are important, darkwoman," Amaram said, "but not nearly as important as the defense of our people. The king sends back riches from the plundered Plains, and the gemstones he has captured can provide food for Alethkar in emergency. You two are both welcome. Are there any others?"
Three more boys from the town stepped forward, and one older man-Harl, who had lost his wife to the scarfever. He was the man whose daughter Kaladin hadn't been able to save after her fall.
"Excellent," Amaram said. "Are there any others?"
The townspeople were still. Oddly so. Many of the boys Kaladin had heard talk so often about joining the army looked away. Kaladin felt his heart beating, and his leg twitched, as if itching to propel him forward.
No. He was to be a surgeon. Lirin looked at him, and his dark brown eyes displayed hints of deep concern. But when Kaladin didn't make any moves forward, he relaxed.
"Very well," Amaram said, nodding to Roshone. "We will need your list after all."
"List?" Lirin asked loudly.
Amaram glanced at him. "The need of our army is great, darkborn. I will take volunteers first, but the army must be replenished. As citylord, my cousin has the duty and honor of deciding which men to send."
"Read the first four names, Alaxia," Roshone said, "and the last one."
Alaxia looked down at her list, speaking with a dry voice. "Agil, son of Marf. Caull, son of Taleb."
Kaladin looked up at Lirin with apprehension.
"He can't take you," Lirin said. "We're of the second nahn and provide an essential function to the town-I as surgeon, you as my only apprentice. By the law, we are exempt from conscription. Roshone knows it."
"Habrin, son of Arafik," Alaxia continued. "Jorna, son of Loats." She hesitated, then looked up. "Tien, son of Lirin."
There was a stillness across the square. Even the rain seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then, all eyes turned toward Tien. The boy looked dumbfounded. Lirin was immune as town surgeon, Kaladin immune as his apprentice.
But not Tien. He was a carpenter's third apprentice, not vital, not immune.
Hesina gripped Tien tightly. "No!"
Lirin stepped in front of them, defensive. Kaladin stood stunned, looking at Roshone. Smiling, self-satisfied Roshone.
We took his son, Kaladin realized, meeting those beady eyes. This is his revenge.
"I…" Tien said. "The military?" For once, he seemed to lose his confidence, his optimism. His eyes opened wide, and he grew very pale. He fainted when he saw blood. He hated fighting. He was still small and spindly despite his age.
"He's too young," Lirin declared. Their neighbors sidled away, leaving Lirin's family to stand alone in the rain.
Amaram frowned. "In the cities, youths as young as eight and nine are accepted into the military."
"Lighteyed sons!" Lirin said. "To be trained as officers. They aren't sent into battle!"
Amaram frowned more deeply. He stepped out into the rain, walking up to the family. "How old are you, son?" he asked Tien.
"He's thirteen," Lirin said.
Amaram glanced at him. "The surgeon. I've heard of you." He sighed, glancing back at Amaram. "I haven't the time to engage in your petty, small-town politics, cousin. Isn't there another boy that will do?"
"It is my choice!" Roshone insisted. "Given me by the dictates of law. I send those the town can spare-well, that boy is the first one we can spare."
Lirin stepped forward, eyes full of anger. Highmarshal Amaram caught him by the arm. "Do not do something you would regret, darkborn. Roshone has acted according to the law."
"You hid behind the law, sneering at me, surgeon," Roshone called to Lirin. "Well, now it turns against you. Keep those spheres! The look on your face at this moment is worth the price of every one of them!"
"I…" Tien said again. Kaladin had never seen the boy so terrified.
Kaladin felt powerless. The crowd's eyes were on Lirin, standing with his arm in the grip of the lighteyed general, locking his gaze with Roshone.
"I'll make the lad a runner boy for a year or two," Amaram promised. "He won't be in combat. It is the best I can do. Every body is needed in these times."
Lirin slumped, then bowed his head. Roshone laughed, motioning Laral toward the carriage. She didn't glance at Kaladin as she climbed back in. Roshone followed, and though he was still laughing, his expression had grown hard. Lifeless. Like the dull clouds above. He had his revenge, but his son was still dead and he was still stuck in Hearthstone.
Amaram regarded the crowd. "The recruits may bring two changes of clothing and up to three stoneweights of other possessions. They will be weighed. Report to the army in two hours and ask for Sergeant Hav." He turned and followed Roshone.
Tien stared after him, pale as a whitewashed building. Kaladin could see his terror at leaving his family. His brother, the one who always made him smile when it rained. It was physically painful for Kaladin to see him so scared. It wasn't right. Tien should smile. That was who he was.
He felt the wooden horse in his pocket. Tien always brought him relief when he felt pained. Suddenly, it occurred to him that there was something he could do in turn. It's time to stop hiding in the room when someone else holds up the globe of light, Kaladin thought. It's time to be a man.
"Brightlord Amaram!" Kaladin yelled.
The general hesitated, standing on the stepstool into the carriage, one foot in the door. He glanced over his shoulder.
"I want to take Tien's place," Kaladin said.
"Not allowed!" Roshone said from inside the carriage. "The law says I may choose."
Amaram nodded grimly.
"Then what if you take me as well," Kaladin said. "Can I volunteer?" That way, at least, Tien wouldn't be alone.
"Kaladin!" Hesina said, grabbing him on one arm.
"It is allowed," Amaram said. "I will not turn away any soldier, son. If you want to join, you are welcome."
"Kaladin, no," Lirin said. "Don't both of you go. Don't-"
Kaladin looked at Tien, the boy's face wet beneath his wide-brimmed hat. He shook his head, but his eyes seemed hopeful.
"I volunteer," Kaladin said, turning back to Amaram. "I'll go."
"Then you have two hours," Amaram said, climbing into the carriage. "Same possession allotment as the others."
The carriage door shut, but not before Kaladin got a glimpse of an even more satisfied Roshone. Rattling, the vehicle splashed away, dropping a sheet of water from its roof.
"Why?" Lirin said, turning back to Kaladin, his voice ragged. "Why have you done this to me? After all of our plans!"
Kaladin turned to Tien. The boy took his arm. "Thank you," Tien whispered. "Thank you, Kaladin. Thank you."
"I've lost both of you," Lirin said hoarsely, splashing away. "Storm it! Both of you." He was crying. Kaladin's mother was crying too. She clutched Tien again.
"Father!" Kaladin said, turning, amazed at how confident he felt.
Lirin paused, standing in the rain, one foot in a puddle where rainspren clustered. They inched away from him like vertical slugs.
"In four years, I will bring him home safely," Kaladin said. "I promise it by the storms and the Almighty's tenth name itself. I will bring him back."
I promise… "Yelignar, called Blightwind, was one that could speak like a man, though often his voice was accompanied by the wails of those he consumed." -The Unmade were obviously fabrications of folklore. Curiously, most were not considered individuals, but instead personifications of kinds of destruction. This quote is from Traxil, line 33, considered a primary source, though I doubt its authenticity. They are an oddly welcoming group, these wild parshmen, Shallan read. It was King Gavilar's account again, recorded a year before his murder. It has now been nearly five months since our first meeting. Dalinar continues to pressure me to return to our homeland, insisting that the expedition has stretched too long.
The parshmen promise that they will lead me on a hunt for a great-shelled beast they call an ulo mas vara, which my scholars say translates roughly to "Monster of the Chasms." If their descriptions are accurate, these creatures have large gemhearts, and one of their heads would make a truly impressive trophy. They also speak of their terrible gods, and we think they must be referring to several particularly large chasm greatshells.
We are amazed to find religion among these parshmen. The mounting evidence of a complete parshman society-with civilization, culture, and a unique language-is astounding. My stormwardens have begun calling this people "the Parshendi." It is obvious this group is very different from our ordinary servant parshmen, and may not even be the same race, despite the skin patterns. Perhaps they are distant cousins, as different from ordinary parshmen as Alethi axehounds are from the Selay breed.
The Parshendi have seen our servants, and are confused by them. "Where is their music?" Klade will often ask me. I do not know what he means. But our servants do not react to the Parshendi at all, showing no interest in emulating them. This is reassuring.
The question about music may have to do with the humming and chanting the Parshendi often do. They have an uncanny ability to make music together. I swear that I have left one Parshendi singing to himself, then soon passed another out of earshot of the first, yet singing the very same song-eerily near to the other in tempo, tune, and lyric.
Their favored instrument is the drum. They are crudely made, with handprints of paint marking the sides. This matches their simple buildings, which they construct of crem and stone. They build them in the craterlike rock formations here at the edge of the Shattered Plains. I ask Klade if they worry about highstorms, but he just laughs. "Why worry? If the buildings blow down, we can build them again, can we not?"
On the other side of the alcove, Jasnah's book rustled as she turned a page. Shallan set aside her own volume, then picked through the books on the desk. Her philosophy training done for the time being, she had returned to her study of King Gavilar's murder.
She slid a small volume out from the bottom of the stack: a record dictated by Stormwarden Matain, one of the scholars who had accompanied the king. Shallan flipped through the pages, searching for a specific passage. It was a description of the very first Parshendi hunting party they encountered.
It happened after we set up beside a deep river in a heavily wooded area. It was an ideal location for a long-term camp, as the dense cobwood trees would protect against highstorm winds, and the river's gorge eliminated the risk of flooding. His Majesty wisely took my advice, sending scouting parties both upriver and down.
Highprince Dalinar's scouting party was the first to encounter the strange, untamed parshmen. When he returned to camp with his story, I-like many others-refused to believe his claims. Surely Brightlord Dalinar had simply run across the parshman servants of another expedition like our own.
Once they visited our camp the next day, their reality could no longer be denied. There were ten of them-parshmen to be sure, but bigger than the familiar ones. Some had skin marbled black and red, and others were marbled white and red, as is more common in Alethkar. They carried magnificent weapons, the bright steel etched with complex decorations, but wore simple clothing of woven narbin cloth.
Before long, His Majesty became fascinated by these strange parshmen, insisting that I begin a study of their language and society. I'll admit that my original intent was to expose them as a hoax of some kind. The more we learned, however, the more I came to realize how faulty my original assessment had been.
Shallan tapped the page, thinking. Then she pulled out a thick volume, titled King Gavilar Kholin, a Biography, published by Gavilar's widow, Navani, two years before. Shallan flipped through pages, scanning for a particular paragraph.
My husband was an excellent king-an inspiring leader, an unparalleled duelist, and a genius of battlefield tactics. But he didn't have a single scholarly finger on his left hand. He never showed an interest in the accounting of highstorms, was bored by talk of science, and ignored fabrials unless they had an obvious use in battle. He was a man built after the classical masculine ideal.
"Why was he so interested in them?" Shallan said out loud.
"Hmmm?" Jasnah asked.
"King Gavilar," Shallan said. "Your mother insists in her biography that he wasn't a scholar."
"True."
"But he was interested in the Parshendi," Shallan said. "Even before he could have known about their Shardblades. According to Matain's account, he wanted to know about their language, their society, and their music. Was that just embellishment, to make him sound more scholarly to future readers?"
"No," Jasnah said, lowering her own book. "The longer he remained in the Unclaimed Hills, the more fascinated by the Parshendi he became."
"So there's a discrepancy. Why would a man with no prior interest in scholarship suddenly become so obsessed?"
"Yes," Jasnah said. "I too have wondered about this. But sometimes, people change. When he returned, I was encouraged by his interest; we spent many evenings talking about his discoveries. It was one of the few times when I felt I really connected with my father."
Shallan bit her lip. "Jasnah," she finally asked. "Why did you assign me to research this event? You lived through this; you already know everything I'm 'discovering.'"
"I feel a fresh perspective may be of value." Jasnah put down her book, looking over at Shallan. "I don't intend for you to find specific answers. Instead, I hope that you will notice details I've missed. You are coming to see how my father's personality changed during those months, and that means you are digging deeply. Believe it or not, few others have caught the discrepancy you just did-though many do note his later changes, once he returned to Kholinar."
"Even so, I feel a little odd studying it. Perhaps I'm still influenced by my tutors' idea that only the classics are a proper realm of study for young ladies."
"The classics do have their place, and I will send you to classical works on occasion, as I did with your study of morality. But I intend such tangents to be adjuncts to your current projects. Those must be the focus, not long-lost historical conundrums."
Shallan nodded. "But Jasnah, aren't you a historian? Aren't those long-lost historical conundrums the meat of your field?"
"I'm a Veristitalian," Jasnah said. "We search for answers in the past, reconstructing what truly happened. To many, writing a history is not about truth, but about presenting the most flattering picture of themselves and their motives. My sisters and I choose projects that we feel were misunderstood or misrepresented, and in studying them hope to better understand the present."
Why, then, are you spending so much time studying folktales and looking for evil spirits? No, Jasnah was searching for something real. Something so important that it drew her away from the Shattered Plains and the fight to avenge her father. She intended to do something with those folktales, and Shallan's research was part of it, somehow.
That excited her. It was the sort of thing she'd wanted since she'd been a child, looking through her father's few books, frustrated that he'd chased off yet another tutor. Here, with Jasnah, Shallan was part of something-and, knowing Jasnah, it was something big.
And yet, she thought. Tozbek's ship arrives tomorrow morning. I'll be leaving.
I need to start complaining. I need to convince Jasnah that this was all so much harder than I anticipated, so that when I leave she won't be surprised. I need to cry, break down, give up. I need to-
"What is Urithiru?" Shallan found herself asking instead.
To her surprise, Jasnah answered without hesitation. "Urithiru was said to be the center of the Silver Kingdoms, a city that held ten thrones, one for each king. It was the most majestic, most amazing, most important city in all the world."
"Really? Why hadn't I heard of it before?"
"Because it was abandoned even before the Lost Radiants turned against mankind. Most scholars consider it just a myth. The ardents refuse to speak of it, due to its association with the Radiants, and therefore with the first major failure of Vorinism. Much of what we know about the city comes from fragments of lost works quoted by classical scholars. Many of those classical works have, themselves, survived only in pieces. Indeed, the single complete work we have from early years is The Way of Kings, and that is only because of the Vanrial's efforts."
Shallan nodded slowly. "If there were ruins of a magnificent, ancient city hidden somewhere, Natanatan-unexplored, overgrown, wild-would be the natural place to find them."
"Urithiru is not in Natanatan," Jasnah said, smiling. "But it is a good guess, Shallan. Return to your studies."
"The weapons," Shallan said.
Jasnah raised an eyebrow.
"The Parshendi. They carried beautiful weapons of fine, etched steel. Yet they used skin drums with crude handprints on the sides and lived in huts of stone and crem. Doesn't that strike you as incongruous?"
"Yes. I would certainly describe that as an oddity."
"Then-"
"I assure you, Shallan," Jasnah said. "The city is not there."
"But you are interested in the Shattered Plains. You spoke of them with Brightlord Dalinar through the spanreed."
"I did."
"What were the Voidbringers?" Now that Jasnah was actually answering, perhaps she'd say. "What were they really?"
Jasnah studied her with a curious expression. "Nobody knows for sure. Most scholars consider them, like Urithiru, mere myths, while theologians accept them as counterparts of the Almighty-monsters that dwelled in the hearts of men, much as the Almighty once lived there."
"But-"
"Return to your studies, child," Jasnah said, raising her book. "Perhaps we will speak of this another time."
There was an air of finality about that. Shallan bit her lip, keeping herself from saying something rude just to draw Jasnah back into conversation. She doesn't trust me, she thought. Perhaps with good reason. You're leaving, Shallan told herself again. Tomorrow. You're sailing away from this.
But that meant she had only one day left. One more day in the grand Palanaeum. One more day with all of these books, all of this power and knowledge.
"I need a copy of Tifandor's biography of your father," Shallan said, poking through the books. "I keep seeing it referenced."
"It's on one of the bottom floors," Jasnah said idly. "I might be able to dig out the index number."
"No need," Shallan said, standing. "I'll look it up. I need the practice."
"As you wish," Jasnah said.
Shallan smiled. She knew exactly where the book was-but the pretense of searching for it would give her time away from Jasnah. And during that time, she'd see what she could discover about the Voidbringers on her own. Two hours later, Shallan sat at a cluttered desk at the back of one of the Palanaeum's lower-level rooms, her sphere lantern illuminating a stack of hastily gathered volumes, none of which had proven much use.
It seemed that everybody knew something about the Voidbringers. People in rural areas spoke of them as mysterious creatures that came out at night, stealing from the unlucky and punishing the foolish. Those Voidbringers seemed more mischievous than evil. But then there would be the odd story about a Voidbringer taking on the form of a wayward traveler who-after receiving kindness from a tallew farmer-would slaughter the entire family, drink their blood, then write voidish symbols across the walls in black ash.
Most people in the cities, however, saw the Voidbringers as spirits who stalked at night, a kind of evil spren that invaded the hearts of men and made them do terrible things. When a good man grew angry, it was the work of a Voidbringer.
Scholars laughed at all these ideas. Actual historical accounts-the ones she could find quickly-were contradictory. Were the Voidbringers the denizens of Damnation? If so, wouldn't Damnation now be empty, as the Voidbringers had conquered the Tranquiline Halls and cast out mankind to Roshar?
I should have known that I'd have trouble finding anything solid, Shallan thought, leaning back in her chair. Jasnah's been researching this for months, maybe years. What did I expect to find in a few hours?
The only thing the research had done was increase her confusion. What errant winds had brought Jasnah to this topic? It made no sense. Studying the Voidbringers was like trying to determine if deathspren were real or not. What was the point?
She shook her head, stacking her books. The ardents would reshelve them for her. She needed to fetch Tifandor's biography and return to their balcony. She rose and walked toward the room's exit, carrying her lantern in her freehand. She hadn't brought a parshman; she intended to carry back only the one book. As she reached the exit, she noticed another light approaching out on the balcony. Just before she arrived, someone stepped up to the doorway, holding aloft a garnet lantern.
"Kabsal?" Shallan asked, surprised to see his youthful face, painted blue by the light.
"Shallan?" he asked, looking up at the index inscription atop the entry-way. "What are you doing here? Jasnah said you were looking for Tifandor."
"I…got turned around."
He raised an eyebrow at her.
"Bad lie?" she asked.
"Terrible," he said. "You're two floors up and about a thousand index numbers off. After I couldn't find you below, I asked the lift porters to take me where they brought you, and they took me here."
"Jasnah's training can be exhausting," Shallan said. "So I sometimes find a quiet corner to relax and compose myself. It's the only time I get to be alone."
Kabsal nodded thoughtfully.
"Better?" she asked.
"Still problematic. You took a break, but for two hours? Besides, I remember you telling me that Jasnah's training wasn't so terrible."
"She'd believe me," Shallan said. "She thinks she's far more demanding than she is. Or…well, she is demanding. I just don't mind as much as she thinks I do."
"Very well," he said. "But what were you doing down here, then?"
She bit her lip, causing him to laugh.
"What?" she demanded, blushing.
"You just look so blasted innocent when you do that!"
"I am innocent."
"Didn't you just lie to me twice in a row?"
"Innocent, as in the opposite of sophisticated." She grimaced. "Otherwise, they'd have been more convincing lies. Come. Walk with me while I fetch Tifandor. If we hurry, I won't have to lie to Jasnah."
"Fair enough," he said, joining her and strolling around the perimeter of the Palanaeum. The hollow inverted pyramid rose toward the ceiling far above, the four walls expanding outward at a slant. The topmost levels were brighter and easier to make out, tiny lights bobbing along railings in the hands of ardents or scholars.
"Fifty-seven levels," Shallan said. "I can't even imagine how much work it must have been for you to create all this."
"We didn't create it," Kabsal said. "It was here. The main shaft, at least. The Kharbranthians cut out the rooms for the books."
"This formation is natural?"
"As natural as cities like Kholinar. Or have you forgotten my demonstration?"
"No. But why didn't you use this place as one of your examples?"
"We haven't found the right sand pattern yet," he said. "But we're sure the Almighty himself made this place, as he did the cities."
"What about the Dawnsingers?" Shallan asked.
"What about them?"
"Could they have created it?"
He chuckled as they arrived at the lift. "That isn't the kind of thing the Dawnsingers did. They were healers, kindly spren sent by the Almighty to care for humans once we were forced out of the Tranquiline Halls."
"Kind of like the opposite of the Voidbringers."
"I suppose you could say that.
"Take us down two levels," she told the parshman lift porters. They began lowering the platform, the pulleys squeaking and wood shaking beneath her feet.
"If you think to distract me with this conversation," Kabsal noted, folding his arms and leaning back against the railing, "you won't be successful. I sat up there with your disapproving mistress for well over an hour, and let me say that it was not a pleasant experience. I think she knows I still intend to try and convert her."
"Of course she does. She's Jasnah. She knows practically everything."
"Except whatever it is she came here to study."
"The Voidbringers," Shallan said. "That's what she's studying."
He frowned. A few moments later, the lift came to a rest on the appropriate floor. "The Voidbringers?" he said, sounding curious. She'd have expected him to be scornful or amused. No, she thought. He's an ardent. He believes in them.
"What were they?" she asked, walking out. Not far below, the massive cavern came to a point. There was a large infused diamond there, marking the nadir.
"We don't like to talk about it," Kabsal said as he joined her.
"Why not? You're an ardent. This is part of your religion."
"An unpopular part. People prefer to hear about the Ten Divine Attributes or the Ten Human Failings. We accommodate them because we, also, prefer that to the deep past."
"Because…" she prodded.
"Because," he said with a sigh, "of our failure. Shallan, the devotaries-at their core-are still classical Vorinism. That means the Hierocracy and the fall of the Lost Radiants are our shame." He held up his deep blue lantern. Shallan strolled at his side, curious, letting him just talk.
"We believe that the Voidbringers were real, Shallan. A scourge and a plague. A hundred times they came upon mankind. First casting us from the Tranquiline Halls, then trying to destroy us here on Roshar. They weren't just spren that hid under rocks, then came out to steal someone's laundry. They were creatures of terrible destructive power, forged in Damnation, created from hate."
"By whom?" Shallan asked.
"What?"
"Who made them? I mean, the Almighty wasn't likely to have 'created something from hate.' So what made them?"
"Everything has its opposite, Shallan. The Almighty is a force of good. To balance his goodness, the cosmere needed the Voidbringers as his opposite."
"So the more good that the Almighty did, the more evil he created as a by-product? What's the point of doing any good at all if it just creates more evil?"
"I see Jasnah has continued your training in philosophy."
"That's not philosophy," Shallan said. "That's simple logic."
He sighed. "I don't think you want to get into the deep theology of this. Suffice it to say that the Almighty's pure goodness created the Voidbringers, but men may choose good without creating evil because as mortals they have a dual nature. Thus the only way for good to increase in the cosmere is for men to create it-in that way, good may come to outweigh evil."
"All right," she said. "But I don't buy the explanation about the Voidbringers."
"I thought you were a believer."
"I am. But just because I honor the Almighty doesn't mean I'm going to accept any explanation, Kabsal. It might be religion, but it still has to make sense."
"Didn't you once tell me that you didn't understand your own self?"
"Well, yes."
"And yet you expect to be able to understand the exact workings of the Almighty?"
She drew her lips into a line. "All right, fine. But I still want to know more about the Voidbringers."
He shrugged as she guided him into an archive room, filled with shelves of books. "I told you the basics, Shallan. The Voidbringers were an embodiment of evil. We fought them off ninety and nine times, led by the Heralds and their chosen knights, the ten orders we call the Knights Radiant. Finally, Aharietiam came, the Last Desolation. The Voidbringers were cast back into the Tranquiline Halls. The Heralds followed to force them out of heaven as well, and Roshar's Heraldic Epochs ended. Mankind entered the Era of Solitude. The modern era."
"But why is everything from before so fragmented?"
"This was thousands and thousands of years ago, Shallan," Kabsal said. "Before history, before men even knew how to forge steel. We had to be given Shardblades, otherwise we would have had to fight the Voidbringers with clubs."
"And yet we had the Silver Kingdoms and the Knights Radiant."
"Formed and led by the Heralds."
Shallan frowned, counting off rows of shelves. She stopped at the correct one, handed her lantern to Kabsal, then walked down the aisle and plucked the biography off the shelf. Kabsal followed her, holding up the lanterns.
"There's more to this," Shallan said. "Otherwise, Jasnah wouldn't be digging so hard."
"I can tell you why she's doing it," he said.
Shallan glanced at him.
"Don't you see?" he said. "She's trying to prove that the Voidbringers weren't real. She wants to demonstrate that this was all a fabrication of the Radiants." He stepped forward and turned to face her, the lanternlight rebounding from the books to either side, making his face pale. "She wants to prove once and for all that the devotaries-and Vorinism-are a gigantic fraud. That's what this is all about."
"Maybe," Shallan said thoughtfully. It did seem to fit. What better goal for an avowed heretic? Undermining foolish beliefs and disproving religion? It explained why Jasnah would study something as seemingly inconsequential as the Voidbringers. Find the right evidence in the historical records, and Jasnah might well be able to prove herself right.
"Haven't we been scourged enough?" Kabsal said, eyes angry. "The ardents are no threat to her. We're not a threat to anyone these days. We can't own property…Damnation, we're property ourselves. We dance to the whims of the citylords and warlords, afraid to tell them the truths of their sins for fear of retribution. We're whitespines without tusks or claws, expected to sit at our master's feet and offer praise. Yet this is real. It's all real, and they ignore us and-"
He cut off suddenly, glancing at her, lips tight, jaw clenched. She'd never seen such fervor, such fury from the pleasant ardent. She wouldn't have thought him capable of it.
"I'm sorry," he said, turning from her, leading the way back down the aisle.
"It's all right," she said, hurrying after him, suddenly feeling depressed. Shallan had expected to find something grander, something more mysterious, behind Jasnah's secretive research. Could it all really just be about proving Vorinism false?
They walked in silence out to the balcony. And there, she realized she had to tell him. "Kabsal, I'm leaving."
He looked at her, surprised.
"I've had news from my family," she said. "I can't speak of it, but I can stay no longer."
"Something about your father?"
"Why? Have you heard something?"
"Only that he's been reclusive lately. More than normal."
She suppressed a flinch. News had gotten this far? "I'm sorry to go so suddenly."
"You'll return?"
"I don't know."
He looked into her eyes, searching. "Do you know when you'll be leaving?" he said in a suddenly cool voice.
"Tomorrow morning."
"Well then," he said. "Will you at least do me the honor of sketching me? You've never given me a likeness, though you've done many of the other ardents."
She started, realizing that was true. Despite their time together, she'd never done a sketch of Kabsal. She raised her freehand to her mouth. "I'm sorry!"
He seemed taken aback. "I didn't mean it bitterly, Shallan. It's really not that important-"
"Yes it is," she said, grabbing his hand, towing him along the walkway. "I left my drawing things up above. Come on." She hurried him to the lift, instructing the parshmen to carry them up. As the lift began to rise, Kabsal looked at her hand in his. She dropped it hastily.
"You're a very confusing woman," he said stiffly.
"I warned you." She held the retrieved book close to her breast. "I believe you said you had me figured out."
"I rescind that statement." He looked at her. "You're really leaving?"
She nodded. "I'm sorry. Kabsal…I'm not what you think I am."
"I think you're a beautiful, intelligent woman."
"Well, you have the woman part right."
"Your father is sick, isn't he?"
She didn't answer.
"I can see why you'd want to return to be with him," Kabsal said. "But surely you won't abandon your wardship forever. You'll be back with Jasnah."
"And she won't be staying in Kharbranth forever. She's been moving from place to place almost constantly for the last two years."
He looked ahead, staring out the front of the lift as they rose. Soon, they had to transfer to another lift to carry them up the next group of floors. "I shouldn't have been spending time with you," he finally said. "The senior ardents think I'm too distracted. They never like it when one of us starts looking outside the ardentia."
"Your right to court is protected."
"We're property. A man's rights can be protected at the same time that he is discouraged from exercising them. I've avoided work, I've disobeyed my superiors…In courting you, I've also courted trouble."
"I didn't ask you for any of that."
"You didn't discourage me."
She had no response for that, other than to feel a rising worry. A hint of panic, a desire to run away and hide. During her years of near-solitude on her father's estate, she had never dreamed of a relationship like this one. Is that what this is? she thought, panic swelling. A relationship? Her intentions in coming to Kharbranth had seemed so straightforward. How had she gotten to the point where she risked breaking a man's heart?
And, to her shame, she admitted to herself that she would miss the research more than Kabsal. Was she a horrible person for feeling that way? She was fond of him. He was pleasant. Interesting.
He looked at her, and there was longing in his eyes. He seemed…Stormfather, he seemed to really be in love with her. Shouldn't she be falling in love with him too? She didn't think she was. She was just confused.
When they reached the top of the Palanaeum's system of lifts, she practically ran out into the Veil. Kabsal followed, but they needed another lift up to Jasnah's alcove, and soon she found herself trapped with him once more.
"I could come," Kabsal said softly. "Return with you to Jah Keved."
Shallan's panic increased. She barely knew him. Yes, they had chatted frequently, but rarely about the important things. If he left the ardentia, he'd be demoted to tenth dahn, almost as low as a darkeyes. He'd be without money or house, in almost as bad a position as her family.
Her family. What would her brothers say if she brought a virtual stranger back with her? Another man to become part of their problems, privy to their secrets?
"I can see from your expression that it's not an option," Kabsal said. "It seems that I've misinterpreted some very important things."
"No, it's not that," Shallan said quickly. "It's just…Oh, Kabsal. How can you expect to make sense of my actions when even I can't make sense of them?" She touched his arm, turning him toward her. "I have been dishonest with you. And with Jasnah. And, most infuriatingly, with myself. I'm sorry."
He shrugged, obviously trying to feign nonchalance. "At least I'll get a sketch. Won't I?"
She nodded as the lift finally shuddered to a halt. She walked down the dark hallway, Kabsal following with the lanterns. Jasnah looked up appraisingly as Shallan entered their alcove, but did not ask why she'd taken so long. Shallan found herself blushing as she gathered her drawing tools. Kabsal hesitated in the doorway. He'd left a basket of bread and jam on the desk. The top of it was still wrapped with a cloth; Jasnah hadn't touched it, though he always offered her some as a peace offering. Without jam, since Jasnah hated it.
"Where should I sit?" Kabsal asked.
"Just stand there," Shallan said, sitting down, propping her sketchpad against her legs and holding it still with her covered safehand. She looked up at him, leaning with one hand against the doorframe. Head shaved, light grey robe draped around him, sleeves short, waist tied with a white sash. Eyes confused. She blinked, taking a Memory, then began to sketch.
It was one of the most awkward experiences of her life. She didn't tell Kabsal that he could move, and so he held the pose. He didn't speak. Perhaps he thought it would spoil the picture. Shallan found her hand shaking as she sketched, though-thankfully-she managed to hold back tears.
Tears, she thought, doing the final lines of the wall around Kabsal. Why should I cry? I'm not the one who just got rejected. Can't my emotions make sense once in a while?
"Here," she said, pulling the page free and holding it up. "It will smudge unless you spray it with lacquer."
Kabsal hesitated, then walked over, taking the picture in reverent fingers. "It's wonderful," he whispered. He looked up, then hurried to his lantern, opening it and pulling out the garnet broam inside. "Here," he said, proffering it. "Payment."
"I can't take that! For one thing, it's not yours." As an ardent, anything Kabsal carried would belong to the king.
"Please," Kabsal said. "I want to give you something."
"The picture is a gift," she said. "If you pay me for it, then I haven't given you anything."
"Then I'll commission another," he said, pressing the glowing sphere into her fingers. "I'll take the first likeness for free, but do another for me, please. One of the two of us together."
She paused. She rarely did sketches of herself. They felt strange to draw. "All right." She took the sphere, then furtively tucked it into her safepouch, beside her Soulcaster. It was a little odd to carry something so heavy there, but she'd gotten accustomed to the bulge and weight.
"Jasnah, do you have a mirror?" she asked.
The other woman sighed audibly, obviously annoyed by the distraction. She felt through her things, taking out a mirror. Kabsal fetched it.
"Hold it up beside your head," Shallan said, "so I can see myself."
He walked back over, doing so, looking confused.
"Angle it to the side a little," Shallan said, "all right, there." She blinked, freezing in her mind the image of her face beside his. "Have a seat. You don't need the mirror any longer. I just wanted it for reference-it helps me for some reason to place my features into the scene I want to sketch. I'll put myself sitting beside you."
He sat on the floor, and Shallan began to work, using it to distract herself from her conflicting emotions. Guilt at not feeling as strongly for Kabsal as he did for her, yet sorrow that she wouldn't be seeing him anymore. And above it all, anxiety about the Soulcaster.
Sketching herself in beside him was challenging. She worked furiously, blending the reality of Kabsal sitting and a fiction of herself, in her flower-embroidered dress, sitting with her legs to the side. The face in the mirror became her reference point, and she built her head around it. Too narrow to be beautiful, with hair too light, cheeks dotted with freckles.
The Soulcaster, she thought. Being here in Kharbranth with it is a danger. But leaving is dangerous too. Could there be a third option? What if I sent it away?
She hesitated, charcoal pencil hovering above the picture. Dared she send the fabrial-packaged, delivered to Tozbek in secret-back to Jah Keved without her? She wouldn't have to worry about being incriminated if her room or person were searched, though she'd want to destroy all pictures she'd drawn of Jasnah with the Soulcaster. And she wouldn't risk suspicion by vanishing when Jasnah discovered her Soulcaster didn't work.
She continued her drawing, increasingly withdrawn into her thoughts, letting her fingers work. If she sent the Soulcaster back alone, then she could stay in Kharbranth. It was a golden, tempting prospect, but one that threw her emotions further into a jumbled mess. She'd been preparing herself to leave for so long. What would she do about Kabsal? And Jasnah. Could Shallan really remain here, accepting Jasnah's freely given tutelage, after what she'd done?
Yes, Shallan thought. Yes, I could.
The fervency of that emotion surprised her. She would live with the guilt, day by day, if it meant continuing to learn. It was terribly selfish of her, and she was ashamed of it. But she would do it for a little longer, at least. She'd have to go back eventually, of course. She couldn't leave her brothers to face danger alone. They needed her.
Selfishness, followed by courage. She was nearly as surprised by the latter as she had been by the former. Neither was something she often associated with who she was. But she was coming to realize that she hadn't known who she was. Not until she left Jah Keved and everything familiar, everything she'd been expected to be.
Her sketching grew more and more fervent. She finished the figures and moved to the background. Quick, bold lines became the floor and the archway behind. A scribbled dark smudge for the side of the desk, casting a shadow. Crisp, thin lines for the lantern sitting on the floor. Sweeping, breezelike lines to form the legs and robes of the creature standing behind Shallan froze, fingers drawing an unintended line of charcoal, breaking away from the figure she'd sketched directly behind Kabsal. A figure that wasn't really there, a figure with a sharp, angular symbol hovering above its collar instead of a head.
Shallan stood, throwing back her chair, sketchpad and charcoal pencil clutched in the fingers of her freehand.
"Shallan?" Kabsal said, standing.
She'd done it again. Why? The peace she'd begun to feel during the sketching evaporated in a heartbeat, and her heart started to race. The pressures returned. Kabsal. Jasnah. Her brothers. Decisions, choices, problems.
"Is everything all right?" Kabsal said, taking a step toward her.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I-I made a mistake."
He frowned. To the side, Jasnah looked up, brow wrinkled.
"It's all right," Kabsal said. "Look, let's have some bread and jam. We can calm down, then you could finish it. I don't care about a-"
"I need to go," Shallan cut in, feeling suffocated. "I'm sorry."
She brushed past the dumbfounded ardent, hurrying from the alcove, giving a wide berth to the place where the figure stood in her sketch. What was wrong with her?
She rushed to the lift, calling for the parshmen to lower her. She glanced over her shoulder. Kabsal stood in the hallway, looking after her. Shallan reached the lift, drawing pad clutched in her hand, her heart racing. Calm yourself, she thought, leaning back against the lift platform's wooden railing as the parshmen began to take her down. She looked up at the empty landing above her.
And found herself blinking, memorizing that scene. She began sketching again.
She drew with concise motions, sketchpad held against her safearm. For illumination, she had just two very small spheres at either side, where the taut ropes quivered. She moved without thought, just drawing, staring upward.
She looked down at what she had drawn. Two figures stood on the landing above, wearing the too-straight robes, like cloth made from metal. They leaned down, watching her go.
She looked up again. The landing was empty. What's happening to me? she thought with increasing horror. When the lift hit the ground, she scrambled away, her skirt fluttering. She all but ran to the exit of the Veil, hesitating beside the doorway, ignoring the master-servants and ardents who gave her confused looks.
Where to go? Sweat trickled down the sides of her face. Where to run when you were going mad?
She cut into the main cavern's crowd. It was late afternoon, and the dinner rush had begun-servants pushing dining carts, lighteyes strolling to their rooms, scholars walking with hands behind their backs. Shallan dashed through their midst, her hair coming free of its bun, the hairspike dropping to the rock behind her with a high-pitched clink. Her loose red hair streamed behind. She reached the hallway leading to their rooms, panting, hair askew, and glanced over her shoulder. Amid the flow of traffic she'd left a trail of people looking after her in confusion.
Almost against her will, she blinked and took a Memory. She raised her pad again, gripping her charcoal pencil in slick fingers, quickly sketching the crowded cavern scene. Just faint impressions. Men of lines, women of curves, walls of sloping rock, carpeted floor, bursts of light in sphere lanterns on the walls.
And five symbol-headed figures in black, too-stiff robes and cloaks. Each had a different symbol, twisted and unfamiliar to her, hanging above a neckless torso. The creatures wove through the crowd unseen. Like predators. Focused on Shallan.
I'm just imagining it, she tried to tell herself. I'm overtaxed, too many things weighing on me. Did they represent her guilt? The stress of betraying Jasnah and lying to Kabsal? The things she had done before leaving Jah Keved?
She tried to stand there, waiting, but her fingers refused to remain still. She blinked, then started drawing again on a new sheet. She finished with a shaking hand. The figures were almost to her, angular not-heads hanging horrifically where faces should have been.
Logic warned that she was overreacting, but no matter what she told herself, she couldn't believe it. These were real. And they were coming for her.
She dashed away, surprising several servants who had been approaching her to offer assistance. She ran, slippered feet sliding on the hallway carpets, eventually reaching the door to Jasnah's rooms. Sketchpad under her arm, she unlocked it with quivering fingers, then pushed through and slammed it behind her. She locked it again and ran for her chamber. She slammed that door closed too, then turned, backing away. The only light in the room came from the three diamond marks in the large crystal goblet on her nightstand.
She got on the bed, then scrambled back as far from the door as she could, until she was against the wall, breathing through her nose with frantic breaths. She still had her sketchpad under her arm, though she'd lost the charcoal. There was more in her nightstand.
Don't do it, she thought. Just sit and calm yourself.
She felt a growing chill, a rising terror. She had to know. She scrambled to pull out the charcoal, then blinked and began to sketch her room.
Ceiling first. Four straight lines. Down the walls. Lines at the corners. Her fingers kept moving, drawing, depicting the pad itself, held before her, safehand shrouded and bracing the pad from behind. And then on. To the beings standing around her-twisted symbols unconnected to their uneven shoulders. Those not-heads had unreal angles, surfaces that melded in weird, impossible ways.
The creature at the front was reaching too-smooth fingers toward Shallan. Just inches from the right side of the sketchpad.
Oh, Stormfather… Shallan thought, charcoal pencil falling still. The room was empty, yet depicted right in front of her was an image of it crowded full of sleek figures. They were close enough that she should be able to feel them breathing, if they breathed.
Was there a chill in the room? Hesitantly-terrified but unable to stop herself-Shallan dropped her pencil and raised her freehand to the right.
And felt something.
She screamed then, jumping to her feet on her bed, dropping the pad, backing against the wall. Before she could consciously think of what she was doing, she was struggling with her sleeve, trying to get the Soulcaster out. It was the only thing she had resembling a weapon. No, that was stupid. She didn't know how to use it. She was helpless.
Except…
Storms! she thought, frantic. I can't use that. I promised myself.
She began the process anyway. Ten heartbeats, to bring forth the fruit of her sin, the proceeds of her most horrific act. She was interrupted midway through by a voice, uncanny yet distinct:
What are you?
She clutched her hand to her chest, losing her balance on the soft bed, falling to her knees on the rumpled blanket. She put one hand to the side, steadying herself on the nightstand, fingers brushing the large glass goblet that sat there.
"What am I?" she whispered. "I'm terrified."
This is true.
The bedroom transformed around her.
The bed, the nightstand, her sketchpad, the walls, the ceiling-everything seemed to pop, forming into tiny, dark glass spheres. She found herself in a place with a black sky and a strange, small white sun that hung on the horizon, too far away.
Shallan screamed as she found herself in midair, falling backward in a shower of beads. Flames hovered nearby, dozens of them, perhaps hundreds. Like the tips of candles floating in the air and moving in the wind.
She hit something. An endless dark sea, except it wasn't wet. It was made of the small beads, an entire ocean of tiny glass spheres. They surged around her, moving in an undulating swell. She gasped, flailing, trying to stay afloat.
You want me to change? a warm voice said in her mind, distinct and different from the cold whisper she had heard earlier. It was deep and hollow and conveyed a sense of great age. It seemed to come from her hand, and she realized she was grasping something there. One of the beads.
The movement of the ocean of glass threatened to tow her down; she kicked frantically, somehow managing to stay afloat.
I've been as I am for a great long time, the warm voice said. I sleep so much. I will change. Give me what you have.
"I don't know what you mean! Please, help me!"
I will change.
She felt suddenly cold, as if the warmth were being drawn from her. She screamed as the bead in her fingers flared to sudden warmth. She dropped it just as a shift in the ocean swell towed her under, beads rolling over one another with a soft clatter.
She fell back and hit her bed, back in her room. Beside her, the goblet on her nightstand melted, the glass becoming red liquid, dropping the three spheres inside to the nightstand's flooded top. The red liquid poured over the sides of the nightstand, splashing to the floor. Shallan pulled back, horrified.
The goblet had been changed into blood.
Her shocked motion thumped the nightstand, shaking it. An empty glass water pitcher had been sitting beside the goblet. Her motion knocked it over, toppling it to the ground. It shattered on the stone floor, splashing the blood.
That was a Soulcasting! she thought. She'd changed the goblet into blood, which was one of the Ten Essences. She raised her hand to her head, staring at the red liquid expanding in a pool on her floor. There seemed to be quite a lot of it.
She was so bewildered. The voice, the creatures, the sea of glass beads and the dark, cold sky. It had all come upon her so quickly.
I Soulcast, she realized again. I did it!
Did it have something to do with the creatures? But she'd begun seeing them in her drawings before she'd ever stolen the Soulcaster. How…what…? She looked down at her safehand and the Soulcaster hidden in the pouch inside her sleeve.
I didn't put it on, she thought. Yet I used it anyway.
"Shallan?"
It was Jasnah's voice. Just outside Shallan's room. The princess must have followed her. Shallan felt a spike of terror as she saw a line of blood leaking toward the doorway. It was almost there, and would pass underneath in a heartbeat.
Why did it have to be blood? Nauseated, she leaped to her feet, slippers soaking up the red liquid.
"Shallan?" Jasnah said, voice closer. "What was that sound?"
Shallan looked frantically at the blood, then at the sketchpad, filled with pictures of the strange creatures. What if they did have something to do with the Soulcasting? Jasnah would recognize them. There was a shadow under the door.
She panicked, tucking the sketchpad away in her trunk. But the blood, it would condemn her. There was enough that only a life-threatening wound could have created it. Jasnah would see. She'd know. Blood where there should be none? One of the Ten Essences?
Jasnah was going to know what Shallan had done!
A thought struck Shallan. It wasn't a brilliant thought, but it was a way out, and it was the only thing that occurred to her. She went to her knees and grabbed a shard of the broken glass pitcher in her safehand, through the fabric of her sleeve. She took a breath and pulled up her right sleeve, then used the glass to cut a shallow gash in her skin. In the panic of the moment, it barely even hurt. Blood welled out.
As the doorknob turned and the door opened, Shallan dropped the glass shard and lay on her side. She closed her eyes, feigning unconsciousness. The door swung open.
Jasnah gasped, immediately calling for help. She rushed to Shallan's side, grabbing her arm and putting pressure on the wound. Shallan mumbled, as if she were barely conscious, gripping her safepouch-and the Soulcaster inside-with her safehand. They wouldn't open it, would they? She pulled her arm closer to her chest, cowering silently as more footsteps and calls sounded, servants and parshmen running into the room, Jasnah shouting for more help.
This, Shallan thought, will not end well. "Though I was due for dinner in Veden City that night, I insisted upon visiting Kholinar to speak with Tivbet. The tariffs through Urithiru were growing quite unreasonable. By then, the so-called Radiants had already begun to show their true nature." -Following the firing of the original Palanaeum, only one page of Terxim's autobiography remained, and this is the only line of any use to me. Kaladin dreamed he was the storm.
He raged forward, the stormwall behind him his trailing cape, soaring above a heaving, black expanse. The ocean. His passing churned up a tempest, slamming waves into one another, lifting white caps to be caught in his wind.
He approached a dark continent and soared upward. Higher. Higher. He left the sea behind. The vastness of the continent spread out before him, seemingly endless, an ocean of rock. So large, he thought, awed. He hadn't understood. How could he have?
He roared past the Shattered Plains. They looked as if something very large had hit them at the center, sending rippling breaks outward. They too were larger than he'd expected; no wonder nobody had been able to find their way through the chasms.
There was a large plateau at the center, but with the darkness and the distance, he could not see much. There were lights, though. Someone lived there.
He did see that the eastern side of the plains was very different from the western side, marked by tall, spindly pillars, plateaus that had nearly been worn away. Despite that, he could see a symmetry to the Shattered Plains. From high above, the plains resembled a work of art.
In a moment, he was past them, continuing north and west to soar across the Sea of Spears, a shallow inland sea where broken fingers of rock jutted above the water. He passed over Alethkar, catching a glimpse of the great city of Kholinar, built amid formations of rock like fins rising from the stone. Then he turned southward, away from anything he knew. He crested majestic mountains, densely populated at their tips, with villages clustered near vents that emitted steam or lava. The Horneater Peaks?
He left them with rain and winds, rumbling down into foreign lands. He passed cities and open plains, villages and twisting waterways. There were many armies. Kaladin passed tents pulled flat against the leeward sides of rock formations, stakes driven into the rock to hold them taut, men hidden inside. He passed hillsides where soldiers huddled in clefts. He passed large wooden wagons, built to house lighteyes while at war. How many wars was the world fighting? Was there nowhere that was at peace?
He took a path to the southwest, blowing toward a city built in long troughs in the ground that looked like giant claw marks ripped across the landscape. He was over it in a flash, passing a hinterland where the stone itself was ribbed and rippled, like frozen waves of water. The people in this kingdom were dark-skinned, like Sigzil.
The land went on and on. Hundreds of cities. Thousands of villages. People with faintly blue veins beneath their skin. A place where the pressure of the approaching highstorm blew water out of spouts in the ground. A city where people lived in gigantic, hollowed-out stalactites hanging beneath a titanic sheltered ridge.
Westward he blew. The land was so vast. So enormous. So many different people. It dazzled his mind. War seemed far less prevalent in the West than it was in the East, and that comforted him, but still he was troubled. Peace seemed a scarce commodity in the world.
Something drew his attention. Strange flashes of light. He blew toward them at the forefront of the storm. What were those lights? They came in bursts, forming the strangest patterns. Almost like physical things that he could reach out and touch, spherical bubbles of light that vibrated with spikes and troughs.
Kaladin crossed a strange city laid out in a triangular pattern, with tall peaks rising like sentries at the corners and center. The flashes of light were coming from a building on the central peak. Kaladin knew he would pass quickly, for as the storm, he could not retreat. Ever westward he blew.
He threw open the door with his wind, entering a long hallway with bright red tile walls, mosaic murals that he passed too quickly to make out. He rustled the skirts of tall, golden-haired serving women who carried trays of food or steaming towels. They called in a strange language, perhaps wondering who had left a window unbarred in a highstorm.
The flashes of light came from directly ahead. So transfixing. Brushing past a pretty gold-and red-haired woman who huddled frightened in a corner, Kaladin burst through a door. He had one brief glimpse of what lay beyond.
A man stood over two corpses. His pale head shaved, his clothing white, the murderer held a long, thin sword in one hand. He looked up from his victims and almost seemed to see Kaladin. He had large Shin eyes.
It was too late to see anything more. Kaladin blew out the window, throwing shutters wide and streaking into the night.
More cities, mountains, and forests passed in a blur. At his advent, plants curled up their leaves, rockbuds closed their shells, and shrubs withdrew their branches. Before long, he neared the western ocean.
CHILD OF TANAVAST. CHILD OF HONOR. CHILD OF ONE LONG SINCE DEPARTED. The sudden voice shook Kaladin; he floundered in the air.